The recent market action feels quite surreal! On the bearish side: 1) Geopolitical conflicts haven’t stopped. 2) There are rate-hike expectations in the Australian dollar, euro, and Japanese yen areas. 3) Oil prices are still above 100. 4) Over the past 30 and 10 years, U.S. Treasury yields have been in the 5 and 4.4 ranges. Liquidity is being drained. But it still isn’t falling. U.S. stocks are also rising, and gold is staying steady, hovering around 4600.

Gold is quite peculiar— the U.S. doesn’t want gold to get too high, because it would affect the dollar’s role. And we’re continuously making acquisitions to push prices higher. It’s very complicated.

On the bullish side for crypto recently, the main thing is the clear passage of legislation reshaping the industry, and institutional spot purchases of Bitcoin. Mostly, institutions are hedging their risks. When U.S. Treasuries rise while the stock market falls, crypto and gold are definitely the first choices to sell for cash and margin products.

Another bullish factor is that shorts are piling up. It’s easy to trigger a short squeeze and short-cascade liquidations, but there shouldn’t be anything to worry about right now—liquidity is insufficient, and most shorts have already been wiped out.

The advice I’ve been giving everyone recently is: don’t put on heavy bets, and make sure to set stop-losses. Trade within small ranges. Don’t try to catch a big long-term trend—if you do, you might have to go through some ranging for 1–2 weeks before things break out. For those with smaller positions who love to gamble, go out and travel for a bit to take a break.