Not-so-daily Vol 2025-10-15 Black-Friday was difficult day to say the least, but I'm gaining more confidence on where we are now so wanted to organize some of my thoughts here. Pre 10/10 Black Friday Got pretty long before the crash Was L/S 4:1 betting on the Gold/BTC catch up trade Obviously it was the wrong ratio to be in. The Crash Portfolio got pretty rekt on the day of the crash, and would've gotten zero'd if I was ADL'd on my shorts. - Start Capital : $90k - Current : ~$3.4m - Max Drawdown : 6.5m to 3.2m, 52% My largest long was HYPE and BTC into the event. HYPE wicked down to $20 on Lighter, which would've wiped me out if it weren't for the slower moving index price and my short hedges. During the crash - on the long side, ended up keeping HYPE and closing BTC longs - on the short side, was very lucky to catch a glimpse of markets at 5:30am and was able to close some very displaced shorts during the chaos. Aftermath Been just watching markets trying to figure how to move forward, not doing much with the portfolio, but as I closed out my shorts, I was very long exacerbating the volatility of my equity curve(~2m daily swings on a 3m port). Very stressful. Now I've cashed out some gains and re-added some shorts and moving L/S ratio back towards 1:1 My View The four-year cyclists seem to be leaning towards a top. I can see the multi-cycle OGs that have succeeded trading the four-year cycles selling their coin after this event. This story can also easily gain momentum as a narrative if BTC shows any weakness. For the four-year cycle to break, it needs a new buyer. This was MSTR and DATs over 2024, but seeing as mNAVs are losing their premiums, it's not clear who will support prices at this range. The longer-term macro backdrop is still bullish with the cutting cycle + Gold catch-up trade still valid, but I think the time-frame is extended due to the sheer OI wipeout. This is quite clearly visible on Coinglass's BTC vs Altcoin OI chart. The last instance of a deleveraging of such magnitude was during April 14th 2024 just before the halving. - The Story : The halving - Optimism : BTC was flirting with ATHs - Euphoria : Massive rally on SOL/BTC - The Crash : This eventually broke down liquidating everyone - Consolidation : 1 year consolidation held up by MSTR - Breakout Catalyst : Trump + DATs This time round we have: - The Story : Cutting cycle and Gold catch-up trade - Optimism : BTC was flirting with ATHs - Euphoria : Altcoins(XPL, Aster) were launching at 3 to 10b FDVs, DATs launching everywhere - The Crash : Massive $19b liquidation - Consolidation : Not sure how long, but gut says perhaps shorter? - Breakout Catalyst : Don't know Positioning I remember trading 2024 chop extremely poorly, so will be adjusting my style to reduce losses as much as I can. Switching trading style from swing to chop. This means lowering leverage to <2x port Targeting extremities and having tight SLs and TPs at least until we return to swing environment. It's gonna suck on CT as well as most people here are swing traders. Re: HYPE long I still like the story and the valuation it is at right now, although it is being challenged in two ways - The 50% drop in OI due to the crash. Will be monitoring to see how it recovers. - Increased competition from other perp Dexes. Namely Lighter with it's looming TGE in 2 months(and also EdgeX, Extended and others) Attention will become more PvP during chop season and you need ammo to compete in the most competitive space in crypto. There are still plenty of paths for Hyperliquid to continue growing; - More institutions wake up to the HYPE story - Killer-app launches from their community - Team token unlock surpise - S2 points season The caveat for points is that they are competing with pre-TGE tokens which are like call options. Contrastingly points post TGE are much more deterministic. This makes the points system easily game-able and the user base more mercenary as seen with ASTER and the long list of failed perp dexes post TGE. In conclusion, I don't see a hard reason to close my HYPE longs yet, but will be decreasing the size of the long after having paid 620k in funding fees AND being in 7 figures in the red due to the above reasons. I don't think it'll be an easy next few months. Good luck to everyone out there! And remember opportunities are plentiful in crypto. You just need to pick the right ones. Peace✌️