End of Year Market Thoughts: Markets, Macro, and What I’m Watching Into 2026

Dec 31

7 min read

To all the community at DADS DEFI SPACE, I wish you blessings and a happy New Year. As the year comes to a close, I want to step back and reflect — not just on markets, but on the path that led here.

Dadsdefispace started as a small idea shared in real time: learning, trading, questioning narratives, and staying honest about uncertainty. Over time, that turned into something more real — now a legitimate LLC, an established brand, and a growing presence across Web3, particularly on Base, where outreach, education, and experimentation are accelerating.

This year wasn’t about perfection. It was about building infrastructure — purpose, community, and presence. Leveraging trading plays to fund the beginnings of our creator token. Expanding into crypto education with a FREE DeFi and crypto class. Launching a creator token on Zora. Laying groundwork that doesn’t always show up in P&L, but matters heading into the next phase of the cycles.

This is my end-of-year market check-in. Not a prediction piece. Not a victory lap.

Just a grounded look at where markets stand as we close out 2025 — and how I’m thinking about positioning, risk, and opportunity moving into 2026.

As always, this is context, and conviction.

Bitcoin & Crypto: Compression, Liquidity, and Traps

Bitcoin is finishing the year doing what it often does before major moves — compressing.

We’re sitting just under $89,000, and volatility is clearly building. Anyone who’s been around long enough knows this kind of price action usually resolves with force. The only question is direction — and right now, that’s intentionally unclear.

Key Bitcoin Levels I’m Watching

$91K — Major resistanceThis zone aligns with the Fibonacci golden pocket and a heavy upside liquidity cluster. It’s also where I’ve been interested on the short side. If price pushes into this area, it’s less “confirmation” and more potential fuel.
$86K — Downside liquidityThere’s dense liquidity below current price, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see this area swept before any real upside attempt.
$102–104K — Macro resistance zoneThis is a critical area. It aligns with historical macro resistance, including the 50-week moving average and the bull market support band. In past cycles, price has tagged this zone, convinced participants the bull was back on, and then corrected sharply.

That’s where I think a lot of retail gets trapped.

KEY POINTS

Current Range: ~$80K–$94K
Key Resistance: $91K–$93K
Major Support: $85K–$86K

Bitcoin is coiling tightly, trading in a compressed range that signals a decisive move is coming. However, current market conditions favor fake breakouts and breakdowns before any sustained trend emerges.

Key Observations:

Momentum is neutral → neither bulls nor bears fully in control
Liquidity hunts on both sides are likely
Patience > prediction in this environment

BTC remains the market’s anchor and safest relative exposure in uncertain conditions.

🔵 Ethereum (ETH): Structural Weakness vs BTC

Current Range: $2,900–$3,000
Critical Level: 50-week EMA (~$3,000)

ETH must reclaim and hold the 50-week EMA to signal renewed bullish strength. Until then, rallies remain suspect.

ETH/BTC Insight:

Consistent lower highs
Capital still prefers BTC dominance
ETH underperformance is a warning, not noise

Ethereum remains a core long-term asset, but position sizing and timing matter right now.

🧮 Technical Analysis & Market Cycles

Dad’s framework leans heavily on long-term moving averages and cycle structure:

Key Indicators:

50-Week MA:
- Loss = early bear market signal WE usually test during the begin of the BEAR MARKET
200-Week MA:(60K right now)
- Tests or reclaim = historical cycle bottoms

Cycle Outlook:

Crypto still respects the four-year cycle
Expectation:
- Shorter bear market this time
- Potential macro + crypto bottom: mid-2026

This aligns with broader liquidity tightening followed by eventual easing.

💰 Portfolio Positioning & Altcoins

❌ Disappointing / De-Risked:

Render
Beam
Pendle
Jupiter
Stacks

These plays failed to outperform BTC or meet conviction thresholds and are being sold or trimmed.

✅ Current Focus:

Bitcoin – primary conviction
Ethereum – secondary, managed exposure

Fewer positions, higher conviction is the strategy moving forward.

🌐 Creator Tokens & DeFi Participation

Active involvement continues in creator token ecosystems, particularly Zora.

Key Warnings:

Extreme volatility
Rug risk is real
Many tokens down 70–90%

Strategy:

Diversify across creators
Align with long-term value, not hype
Treat tokens like venture bets, not investmentsPositioning & Sentiment

Sentiment is currently split. Longs and shorts are relatively balanced across timeframes, which often leads to fakeouts. I expect false directional moves before any sustained trend emerges.

For transparency: I’ve been short ZORA and SOL, and longing ETH, although we caught the dip at 2775 . My view is that Bitcoin likely tests the lower end of the range before any meaningful upside continuation. AN altcoins will continue to bleed, although a recovery bounce is what I'm afraid will wreck so much of retial just like last cycle.

For non-professional traders, I’d honestly recommend avoiding this entirely. It’s messy, emotional, and designed to extract from retail. We took a hit today trying to Long the bottom of ZORA and got wrecked.

Let's look at the big picture

Macro Backdrop: Growth on Paper, Stress in Reality

2025 was a strange year economically.

On paper, the US economy grew — roughly 1.5–2% real GDP, with most of that strength concentrated in Q3. Inflation cooled into the 2.7–3% range. From a textbook standpoint, those numbers look fine. BTC hit an all time high before the halfing and this was the cycle of Insitutions. Trump brought crypto to the United States and fleece our Industry, and eventually the cycle ends.

However, real-life experiences painted a different picture. If you are involved in building, creating, or educating the retail audience, you will succeed in the cryptoverse.

What Actually Defined 2025

“Liberation Day” tariffs that briefly crashed markets before a rapid recovery
The longest federal government shutdown in history (43 days)
Unemployment rising to 4.6%, the highest in four years
A personal savings rate collapsing to 4.7%, near historic lows
Credit card debt is at an ALL-time high
UNemployment begining to increase
FED changing from QT to QE over the next year.
Trump and MElanie MEme coin Suck liquidity out of the crypto markets
ANd Bianance Single-handedly possibly liquidiating 19 billion dollars from the crypto markets.

Despite measured growth, over half of Americans believed the US was already in a recession. Consumer sentiment stayed deeply negative throughout the year.

The US dollar fell more than 10% in 2025 — a tailwind for risk assets, but another source of stress for households already feeling stretched. I live in a working-class communityh and I see it on a daily basis.

Looking into 2026, Wall Street remains broadly bullish, but with far less conviction. I think next year may be when the gap between markets and the real economy finally gets tested — possibly in a way that reshapes sentiment for the next cycle. So buckle up buttercup.

Silver: Incredible Run, Increasing Risk

Silver had a monster year.

Price moved from roughly $29 to nearly $79, more than doubling. Supply deficits, China’s export restrictions heading into 2026, and industrial demand from solar and EVs all played a role.

But here’s the part people don’t like hearing:

Demand didn’t triple.

Price ran far ahead of fundamentals, and historically, silver is notorious for violent retracements after parabolic moves. We’ve seen this pattern before — twice in prior bull cycles.

Silver has also not proven to be a reliable long-term hedge against dollar debasement. Momentum could extend further, especially if shorts step in early, but the risk-reward profile is no longer asymmetric in my view.

Late buyers need to be careful.

Real Estate: Frozen, Not Crashing

US real estate didn’t crash in 2025.

It simply stopped.

Transaction volume remained extremely low throughout the year. Major banks repeatedly described the market as frozen, stalled, or at a standstill. Mortgage rates stayed elevated, affordability remained poor, and both buyers and sellers largely stepped aside.

This isn’t a healthy market — but it’s also not a panic.

It’s a pause.

How that pause resolves will likely depend on interest rates, employment trends, and confidence more than anything else.

WHY ITS IMPORTANT

We continue to believe in the four-year cycle, and it seems this one is nearing its end. Bitcoin reached its peak in November, and the anticipated altseason didn't materialize, but we are committed for the long term and have been since the 2020 cycle. Currently, ETH is demonstrating more strength than Bitcoin, although I believe Bitcoin dominance will increase in 2026. The BTC/ETH chart illustrates this more clearly than I can describe.

Wrapping Up 2025 — and Looking Ahead

As we close out the year, a few things stand out — both in markets and in the work behind dadsdefispace:

Bitcoin is compressed — expect fakeouts before resolution
$91K remains heavy resistance with strong short-side confluence
$102–104K may act as a bull trap rather than confirmation
Economic growth masked widespread financial stress
Silver’s rally was historic, but risk is now elevated
Real estate remains locked, not broken
A weaker dollar supported risk assets while adding pressure beneath the surface

On the personal and business side, this year was about turning momentum into structure — formalizing the LLC, expanding Web3 outreach on Base, launching education that stays free and accessible, and experimenting with creator economics through Zora.

There’s still a lot to create, alot to build.

I see 2026 as a year of execution — where groundwork meets opportunity, and where market narratives and economic reality may finally collide in a way that reshapes expectations.

As always, I’m less focused on being right and more focused on staying flexible, risk-defined, and open to invalidation. This takes research and the time to develop convition in your plays. So over the next few months we are building and focusing on accumulating ourn high conviction plays (that means consolidating the portfolio)

That’s the game, take it, or leave it — and there’s a lot more to do next year. I hope you will join us for the ride.

-Kevin