OVERVIEW

Traders Are Calling Crime Stoppers On Their Own Positions 🦹

Here’s What’s Happening 👇️

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TECHNICAL ANALYSIS
The Crypto Market Is Calm But Momentum Is Doing Weird Stuff 🤔 

Today’s newsletter is a deep dive… well this is deeper than a deep dive. How about a really deep dive or a really deep deep dive? Anyway, today’s newsletter runs through 4,545 daily observations dating back to March 2014 to see how the current week and month compare with past spikes, troughs, failed drives, and momentum breakdowns. 📉

So here’s the question: is crypto oversold? That might not be the right question. A better one would be, ‘have price action and momentum ever disagreed so much?’ Because, holy cow, things are wonky.

Data note: This study uses 4,545 daily observations from March 1, 2014 through August 12, 2026. Well, till 1100 EST on August 12.

• Current Market Cap: $2.163 trillion.

• Current August Return: +1.05% from the July 31 close.

• Since Sunday’s Close: -1.31%.

• From The October 6, 2025 Closing High: -48.74%.

Capitulation Called. It Wants Its Name Back

The current oscillator levels are low. They are not remotely close to the largest historical washouts.

• Current Composite Index: 26.48. Nearly four out of five historical readings were higher.

• August 11 Closed Reading: 38.40. Roughly two-thirds of historical readings were higher.

• Historical CI Range: -38.98 in November 2018 to 138.72 in May 2016.

• Current Normalized Detrended Price Oscillator (DPO): -0.595%. Four out of every 10 historical readings were lower. The other six were higher.

• Historical DPO Troughs: -81.78% on March 12, 2020 and -67.91% in January 2015.

• Historical DPO Peak: +34.54% in July 2017.

The DPO looks uglier at -$12.87 billion. That is mostly a unit-size gag. 🤡

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TECHNICAL ANALYSIS
Speed Needs Bail Money ⏩️

The current Composite Index (CI) level is ordinary. The route into it left skid marks. 💩 

• Expected Change From A 1.31% Market-Cap Loss: -6.23 points.

• Similar Price Losses: Among 772 periods when total market cap returned between -2% and 0%, this CI drop was more severe than 98.58% of them.

Price action nd DPO are discussing a routine pullback. CI has overturned the conference table.

August Has Done Almost Nothing Very Aggressively

The first 12 daily observations of August produced one of the strangest monthly openings ever:

• High-To-Low Range: 4.57%. Only April 2016 was tighter among 149 valid comparisons.

• Daily Return Volatility: Second-lowest among those 149 month openings.

• CI Path: 29.21 to 78.74 to 26.48.

• Total CI Travel: 111 points.

• Total Closing-Price Travel: 5.95%.

• CI Travel Per Unit Of Price Travel: Second-highest in the dataset. April 2016 is the only one higher.

No Bulls With The Bull Signal

From August 5 through August 10, CI sat above both its 13-day and 33-day averages while DPO stayed above zero. A synchronized bullish state, at least on the paperwork.

• Duration: Six days.

• Return From First Aligned Close To Last: -0.95%.

• Maximum Closing Gain: +0.38%.

• Total Bullish Alignment Episodes: 309.

• Current Episode Rank: Among the weakest 14%.

• Prior Six-Day Episodes: 15.

• Median Maximum Gain From Those Episodes: +3.46%.

• Current Maximum Gain: Second-smallest among all 16 six-day episodes, including this one.

Six days of bullish alignment. Enough time to make coffee, file taxes, and locate absolutely no follow-through. 😶

TECHNICAL ANALYSIS
History Has Three Answers And None Brought Identification 🪪

• Median 7-Day Return: +1.82%.

• Median 14-Day Return: +3.08%.

• Median 30-Day Return: +2.94%.

2015 Stats

• July 21 CI: 10.72.

• July 28 CI Peak: 100.85.

• July 29 CI: 78.68.

• August 1 CI: 17.91.

• Market-Cap Return Across The Low-To-Low Path: +1.48%.

• Drawdown From The Prior 365-Day High: -47.81%. Today’s is -48.74%.

• Forward Return After 7 Days: -6.28%.

• Forward Return After 14 Days: -6.37%.

• Forward Return After 30 Days: -17.36%.

• Forward Return After 90 Days: +19.26%.

The total-market-cap basket in 2015 also has little in common with today’s stablecoin-heavy, listing-bloated warehouse.

2018 Stats

• Forward Return After 7 Days: -12.98%.

• Forward Return After 14 Days: -39.47%.

• Forward Return After 30 Days: -50.72%.

August 2026?

Ya, we’re only a third of the way through with this month, but August 2026 is weird. It’s not oversold, nope, but what we do have is historically abnormal separation between price, DPO, and the shortest part of the Composite Index.

• Broad CI Shock: Leans toward a rebound.

• Failed Impulse: Leans toward another bruise.

• Direct Bull-To-Bear Flip: Shrugs.

Where price action is currently at:

• Distance Below The 200-Day Average: 8.00%.

• Drawdown From The All-Time Closing High: 48.74%.

• Distance Above The June 30 Closing Low: 7.30%.

Macro damage. Micro compression.

Bearish And Bullish Scenarios

For a bullish environment, three things need to happen:

• CI: Recover the 50.61-to-52.65 average band.

• DPO: Reclaim zero.

• Total Market Cap: Retake the July 21 closing high near $2.240 trillion.

For a bearish environment, these three need to happen:

• Price: Break below August’s $2.116 trillion low.

• DPO: Expand further below zero.

• CI Structure: Widen the negative 13/33 average spread.

A price break without those confirmations is another fire drill. Until one side produces evidence, momentum is panicking inside one of the tightest tapes in the record. 🗜️ 

OLD NEWS
Crypto Stuff That Happened Today, But A Long Time Ago 📜

Here’s what was happening in the newsletter a year ago today:

• The altcoin market was flirting with all-time highs - the whole issue had that “alts might finally be doing the thing” energy.

• Circle announced Arc - a stablecoin-focused L1 using USDC as gas, sub-second deterministic finality, built-in FX, EVM compatibility, and opt-in privacy.

• Monero had a 51% attack scare - Qubic had publicly said it would stack Monero hash, then the debate became whether it was an attack, a demo, a stress test, or just another “please define the disaster” crypto moment.

Here’s what was happening in the newsletter two years ago today:

• The market faded a strong green open - total crypto market cap was up around 4% earlier, then gave most of it back and finished closer to +1%.

• Marathon raised $250M to buy more BTC, Morgan Stanley opened Bitcoin ETFs to wealthy clients, and an ex-SEC official warned that its compliance department might be walking into subpoena weather.

• Tether dismissed Celsius’ $3.3B lawsuit as nonsense tied to a Bitcoin liquidation.

OLD NEWS
Other Stuff That Happened Today, But A Long Ass Time Ago ⌛️

August 12

• 30 B.C. - Cleopatra died by suicide, ending Ptolemaic rule and ancient Egypt’s independence

• 1099 - Crusaders crushed a larger Fatimid army at Ascalon, effectively ending the First Crusade

• 1121 - Georgia annihilated a much larger Seljuk force at Didgori, launching its medieval golden age

• 1492 - Columbus reached the Canary Islands

• 1676 - Wampanoag leader Metacom was killed

• 1898 - Spain accepted an armistice ending the Spanish-American War after less than 4 months

• 1909 - Indianapolis Motor Speedway opened

• 1953 - The Soviet Union tested its first hydrogen bomb

• 1981 - IBM introduced the Model 5150 personal computer, helping make “PC” a household term

• 2000 - Explosions sank the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk, killing all 118 aboard

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Author Disclosure: The author of this newsletter holds positions in AVAX, ADA, PUDGY, WLD, NEAR, INJ, LTC, LINK, ZEC, XLM, and FET. 📋