Pullbacks and Paydays: Bitcoin’s Long Game Still Wins
The market panics, the doubters crow, and the headlines scream bloody murder
The human condition is inherently wired to respond to fear and uncertainty.
A survival mechanism that has served us well in the wild but often betrays us in the modern financial world.
When it comes to Bitcoin—or any volatile asset—this short-sightedness becomes glaringly obvious. The Fear & Greed Index registering "extreme fear" over a mere 16% to 20% drop from Bitcoin's all-time high perfectly encapsulates this emotional miscalibration.
Let’s break it down
Markets are, at their core, psychological battlegrounds. People zoom into short timeframes, obsessing over hourly or daily price movements as if they are life-or-death signals.
This tunnel vision blinds them to the bigger picture:
Bitcoin's fundamentals remain as solid as ever, regardless of price fluctuations or public sentiment. Its value proposition was never dependent on state adoption or price milestones; it's designed for a world where trust in fiat currencies continues to erode.
The Bitcoin ledger—the immutable, decentralized backbone of the network—continues to operate seamlessly, whether the price is $90,000 or $9,000. It doesn’t care about… today’s Fear & Greed Index or the emotional turbulence of short-term traders. It just keeps humming along, block by block.
At its core, Bitcoin embodies the traits of "perfect money" in the digital age. It remains decentralized, free from the control of any single entity or government. Its hard-capped supply enforces scarcity in a way fiat currencies never could, especially in an era of rampant money printing. It’s borderless, transcending geographic and political boundaries. And it’s permissionless, open for anyone in the world to use as a store of value (SoV) or medium of exchange (MoE) without needing approval from a centralized authority.
When fear dominates the market, as it does now with Bitcoin a mere 20% below its all-time high, it creates a disconnect between perception and reality. This is where opportunity lies.
Bitcoin’s fundamentals remain constant, its ledger unbroken, its purpose clear. The question isn’t whether Bitcoin will weather this storm—it always does. The question is whether we can zoom out far enough to see the bigger picture and act accordingly.
The way you look at BTC changes everything
Look at the last month and it looks scary.
Look at the last 5 years and it looks amazing.
Bitcoin’s price action has always been a wild ride, and anyone who’s been around the block knows it’s not a straight shot to the moon. Veteran investors don’t flinch at the dips—they expect them.
In the words of Scott Melker, this is the place where legends (and cowards) are made.
A quote from his missive today:
Veteran investors know that Bitcoin bull markets are filled with pullbacks—necessary corrections that reset leverage and allow the price to climb higher. I dug through the charts, and here’s what I found:
After the 2013 bottom, there were 12 pullbacks of more than 20%.
After the 2015 bottom, there were 17 pullbacks over 20%.
After the 2018 bottom, there were 2 pullbacks before the 2019 top.
After the 2020 bottom, there were 7 pullbacks before the April 2021 top.
Since the 2022 bottom, we’ve already seen 8 pullbacks over 20%—and counting.
A 20% Bitcoin pullback is completely normal. What would be abnormal is if it never happened. Bitcoin could even dip further, and it would still be par for the course.
Swan Bitcoin — the platform I endorse for dollar-cost-averaging into Bitcoin — pointed it out, too, this morning:
History shows these temporary dips become mere footnotes in Bitcoin's long-term appreciation story. Bitcoin's foundational value proposition remains stronger than ever.
In other words….
Bitcoin’s price chart is like a good novel—full of dramatic dips that feel like the end of the world, only to turn into plot twists that set up the next big chapter.
History keeps proving it: these pullbacks are just speed bumps, little scribbles in the margins of a story that’s been writing itself in bold, upward strokes for over a decade.
Sure, the market panics, the doubters crow, and the headlines scream bloody murder—but Bitcoin? It just dusts itself off and keeps climbing.
Why? Because its bones are built on something unshakeable: a value proposition that doesn’t bend to hype or break under pressure. Scarcity, decentralization, trust without middlemen—it’s the same recipe that’s outlasted every “this is the end” prediction.
Those dips?
They’re footnotes, not the finale. And the ink on Bitcoin’s long-term saga is far from dry.
The more $BTC is discounted, the more we buy….
Related Reading:
Until I write again…
Your Partner in the Quest for
Living a Life Without Limits,
Barry “Bear” Goss
