I was never intending to write an article … I’m not a developer, coder, influencer, or YouTube personality — just a quiet homesteader stacking sats and thinking about long-term financial freedom. I stumbled across making this diagram while bombarding my AI chat with the usual million questions I have after watching my usual favourite bitcoin youtubers. Imaging living in 2026 and accidentally creating something?! Isn’t the time we live in crazy?
I don’t understand much - I hate the word macro, I do not have a tradfi background, I am not a sophisticated trader and yes, I generally dislike them when I accidentally meet them at a party. However, after studying and learning about bitcoin I wanted to share my take on the basics and where I think we are currently at.

Over the past cycle bitcoin has moved through extreme highs and deep uncertainty. After reaching an all-time high of about $125,000–$126,000 USD in early October 2025, sentiment took a nosedive as liquidity tightened (or didn’t loosen) and markets cooled. The Fear & Greed Index fell back into extreme fear — a level not seen since the 2022–2023 bear market. For those new to bitcoin this can feel like failure, but bitcoin has always moved through different periods of calm, stress, and recovery. As we all know, price alone doesn’t define bitcoin — its value comes from a fixed monetary structure that can’t be easily debased and continues to exist regardless of short-term volatility — however this diagram is a simple framework that has helped me understand bitcoin’s environment through two forces: liquidity (how easy it is for money to move and be used in markets) and system stability. It’s not a prediction tool, just a way to map the monetary weather.

Bitcoin has changed structurally since the launch of the first US spot Bitcoin ETF (January 2024, beginning of course, with BlackRock). Institutional access has expanded, which did not secure immediate bullish price action that many bitcoiners anticipated — the market moves differently now compared with previous times when the retail investors were in control. Overall, the market now increasingly reflects global liquidity and system stability, not just emotionally fuelled crypto-native narratives.

Personally, I feel like a quiet arms race is happening between two forces: the uncertainty of a changing world (think Fourth Turning, WW3, explosion of AI) and Bitcoin’s steady movement along an adoption curve that resembles the early internet — slow at first, then suddenly exponential. Discussions around Fourth Turning cycles, technological acceleration, and evolving policy environments often sit in the background, but this framework isn’t about politics or prediction. It’s simply an attempt to understand the environment Bitcoin moves through. That’s where the Bitcoin Monetary Weather Map comes in.

In my view, we’re currently sitting Stable + Tight — a quieter, uncertain part of monetary weather where institutional flows have slowed, real yields remain relatively elevated, and global liquidity hasn’t fully turned back toward expansion.

Another thing that has been different about 2025/26 is that several well-known bitcoin models including:

• Stock-to-Flow

• Rainbow charts

• strict post-halving price targets

• new super cycle ideas

• power-law projections

haven’t matched recent price action (haven’t held true). This likely reflects a market that is being shaped more by liquidity (still waiting for THE BIG PRINT, love you, Larry!), ETF flows (is paper bitcoin an issue??), and broader economic conditions (“The economy is booming“ - is it really?) rather than any single model. I know people feel very passionately about their models and I don’t know what is going to happen. Only 20/20 hindsight vision will tell us who was right, who was close and who was spectacularly wrong.

No price predictions, no certainty — just a weather forecast.

All I know is that we really only have today so - keep consistent, love your family, go outside and keep stacking sats.