The end of the bull market or a halftime break? Analysts reveal Bitcoin's momentum is weakening, and three major support areas are key

After creating a new high of $112,000, Bitcoin's price has recently entered a consolidation phase with mixed market sentiment. On-chain analyst Murphy points out that Bitcoin seems to be entering a stage of energy attenuation, with potential for future rebounds but also risks of deep corrections. After hitting a high of $112,000 last week, Bitcoin has recently experienced price pullbacks and multiple profit-taking events, indicating that bullish momentum may be weakening. Analyst Murphy noted that the second wave of realized profits on May 29 was slightly lower than the first wave on May 23 ($2.1 billion), but brought a significant price downward pressure, suggesting that market absorption capacity or demand is somewhat weak. On-chain data shows that short-term holder (STH) supply continues to decline, reflecting reduced investor confidence compared to the divergence in November last year. This highlights that the May rally was mainly driven by low liquidity and reluctance to sell, rather than strong demand, limiting upward price potential. Despite short-term market pressure, Murphy still believes Bitcoin might rebound and potentially challenge its historical high. Based on past experience, the market could still create new highs after the first energy attenuation. If a rebound occurs with larger profit-taking, prices could potentially break through $110,000. Regarding potential support levels, Murphy identified three key areas: 1. $100,000 to $105,000: Significant chip accumulation 2. $93,000 to $98,000: Mostly held by new buyers with long-term intentions 3. $81,000 to $87,000: The most extreme potential support area Recently, a whale named James Wynn on Hyperliquid has been a focal point in the community, frequently using 40x leverage to open positions worth billions of dollars, demonstrating the platform's on-chain transparency.

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Will On-Chain Trading Be Stopped Loss?

Jeff stated that during Hyperliquid's growth, skeptics questioned the platform's liquidity. Now these concerns have dissipated, and Hyperliquid has become one of the most liquid markets globally. As Hyperliquid is used by some whales, the focus of discussion has shifted to concerns about transparent trading. Many believe that large traders on Hyperliquid will:

• Be front-run when opening positions.
• Be sniped due to their publicly disclosed liquidation and stop-loss prices.

He believes these concerns are understandable, but the opposite is true: for most large traders, transparent trading can improve execution efficiency compared to private venues. The high-level argument is that the market is an efficient machine for converting information into fair prices and liquidity. By trading openly on Hyperliquid, large traders give market makers more opportunities to provide liquidity, thus achieving better execution. Billion-dollar positions may be executed better on Hyperliquid than on centralized exchanges.

ETF Also Chooses to Publicly Rebalance Positions

Taking the world's largest traditional financial ETFs as an example, they need to rebalance daily. For instance, leveraged ETFs will increase positions when prices are favorable and reduce them when not. These funds manage assets worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Many such funds choose to execute trades during the exchange's closing auction. In many ways, this is more extreme than large traders publicly trading on Hyperliquid:

• These funds' positions are almost completely public, which is also the case on Hyperliquid.
• These funds follow public strategies, which is not the case on Hyperliquid, where large traders can trade freely.
• These funds trade daily in a predictable manner, usually in large amounts, which is not the case on Hyperliquid, where large traders can trade at any time.
• The closing auction provides ample opportunity for other participants to react to ETF flow, which is not the case on Hyperliquid, as trading is continuous and real-time.

ETF managers have chosen a transparency similar to Hyperliquid. These funds could flexibly privatize their capital flow but actively choose to disclose their intentions and trades. Why?

Another example is the history of electronic markets. Markets are efficient machines for converting information into fair prices and liquidity. Electronic trading was a breakthrough innovation in financial markets in the early 2000s. Previously, trading was mainly conducted on trading floors with wider spreads. As programmatic matching engines transparently executed price and time priority principles, spreads significantly narrowed, and user liquidity improved. Open order books allow market forces to incorporate supply and demand information into fairer prices and deeper liquidity.

Why is Hyperliquid a More Advanced Order Book System?

Order books are classified by information granularity. L0 and L4 here are just used to express different levels, not standard terminology.

• L0: No order book information (e.g., dark pools).
• L1: Best bid and ask quotes.
• L2: Prices and total volume at each order book level, with optional number of orders within each level.
• L3: Individual anonymous orders, including time, price, and quantity, with some fields like sender kept private.
• L4 (Hyperliquid): Individual orders with completely equivalent private and public information.

With each increase in order book granularity, the information that participants can incorporate into their models significantly improves. Traditional financial venues stop at L3, but Hyperliquid advances to L4. This is partly due to the transparent and verifiable nature of blockchain. Jeff sees this as an advantage, not a flaw.

The trade-off between privacy and market efficiency covers the full range from L0 to L4. Within this range, L3 order books are a compromise, not necessarily the best. The main argument against L4 order books is that some strategy operators prefer privacy. Perhaps order placement might reveal some advantages in the strategy. However, Jeff, who comes from the quantitative giant HRT, points out that quantitative firms can already derive most flow information from anonymous data. It is difficult to open large positions over a period without revealing information to savvy participants.

Jeff states that he believes financial privacy should be a personal right. He looks forward to the blockchain industry thoughtfully implementing privacy in a mature way in the coming years. The important thing is not to confuse privacy with execution efficiency. They are not hand-in-hand concepts, but independent and potentially conflicting important concepts.

Privacy and Trading Efficiency Require Balance

Some might believe certain privacy is absolutely beneficial. However, privacy is not without cost, as it involves a trade-off with execution efficiency. Defining toxic flow as trades that one party immediately regrets afterward, with "immediately" defining the time scale of toxicity. Toxic flow may be mixed with non-toxic accepting flow, thereby degrading execution efficiency for all participants. An example is high-frequency traders running toxic arbitrage acceptance strategies at the fastest speed between two platforms. Market makers incur losses when providing liquidity for these participants.

The primary job of market makers is to provide liquidity for non-toxic flow while avoiding toxic flow as much as possible. In transparent venues, market makers can classify participants by toxicity and selectively increase supply when executing for non-toxic participants. Therefore, large traders can expand their positions faster in transparent venues compared to anonymous venues.

If you want to make a large transaction, the best approach is to inform the world in advance

Returning to the ETF rebalancing example, a transparent venue does not have more front-running opportunities than a private one. On the contrary, traders can benefit by directly announcing their actions to the market. In a transparent venue, clearing and stop-loss are not more easily sniped than in a private venue. Attempts to push up prices in a transparent venue will encounter counterparties more confident in mean reversion trading. If a trader wants to make a large transaction, one of the best approaches is to inform the world in advance. Although this may seem counterintuitive, the more information available, the better the execution efficiency. On Hyperliquid, these transparent tags apply to every order at the protocol level. This provides a unique opportunity for traders of all sizes to expand liquidity and execution efficiency. The well-known Gold school investment expert Peter Schiff surprisingly showed up at the Bitcoin Conference 2025, directly challenging Trace Mayer, who defends Bitcoin and Monetary Sovereignty, leading to a heated debate about Bitcoin's value. In this fascinating conversation, both traced the history and philosophy of money and Bitcoin's position in market order. Trace Mayer believes fiat currency is dead, while Peter Schiff insists Bitcoin is a speculative Ponzi scheme and tulip bubble. Trace Mayer, an early investor in Bitcoin Magazine, Bitpay, and Kraken, is also an author and Bitcoin education promoter who advocates using Bitcoin to achieve human economic freedom (not just financial freedom). Below is a summary of their key discussion points. [Rest of the translation follows the same professional and accurate approach]

Can BTC Become the Gold Standard of Our Time?

Trace Mayer disagrees with Peter Schiff's criticism, arguing that while gold has physical value, in today's highly digitized global environment, gold is difficult to carry and verify, easily censored, and lacks flexibility. BTC, on the other hand, can be transferred globally in real-time, is completely transparent, and requires no third-party intervention - a monetary technology more suited to modern needs. BTC can be held and transferred without going through banks or governments, representing a revolution in human trust value where humans can trust mathematics without central bank approval.

Peter Schiff Strikes Back: Hype, Not Innovation

Peter Schiff states that BTC is a game driven by market sentiment and leverage. He points out that BTC has failed to serve as a hedge during global market crises, instead moving in sync with risk assets, demonstrating it lacks the attributes of a mature currency. This digital asset's extreme volatility makes it unsuitable as a long-term value storage tool, with investors only holding it in hopes of selling it to someone else at a higher price.

Final Debate Summary: This is About Freedom of Choice

In his final summary, Trace Mayer describes BTC as an experiment against the old financial system. He believes BTC's open-source spirit, global consensus mechanism, and ability to resist censorship will write a new chapter in human monetary history. This is not just about money, but about sovereignty and freedom; humans are creating an inviolable new economic system through code.

Opposing Thoughts Spark Market Awakening

This dialogue between Peter Schiff and Trace Mayer at the Bitcoin conference is more than a clash of values - it reminds us that BTC is not just an investment target, but a deep philosophical reflection on human economic freedom. Whether choosing tradition or innovation, it's undeniable that BTC has revolutionized human monetary history, becoming a symbol of disruptive innovation in the global financial system. Interestingly, the inventor of BTC, Satoshi Nakamoto, remains behind the scenes. Is BTC a manifestation of utopia or just an ultimate experiment at the end of an era? No one knows.