Weekly Engine #94

W1 May 2026

GM/GN.

This week the market was filled with loud claims that Bitcoin’s bottom is already in and growth lies ahead. Against this backdrop, the large joint report by James Check and Unchained is particularly telling. The authors do not claim that the market has definitively bottomed, but they allow that after the capitulation to $60K, Bitcoin entered a base formation phase, and the main downside momentum may already be behind us.

At the same time, their conclusion is framed not as a confirmed fact but as a probabilistic scenario. The authors openly acknowledge they may be wrong, emphasize that a sustainable base does not have to form quickly, and allow for months (6-12) of heavy sideways consolidation, as well as one more leg down. Moreover, the thesis of the report is largely built on the premise that True Market Mean = $78K has already become a more important cycle boundary than the classical Realized Price = $54K. They view the $80K-$85K zone as key resistance and the dividing line between the current bear market and the next bull cycle, and the $52K-$54K area as the likely lower boundary if the market still receives one final capitulation sell-off.

Following these statements, I updated the classic RP model and introduced Bitcoin Adjusted Realized Price Bands (Alive Coins) - a new version of Realized Price adjusted for 4-year cycles and lost coins, including Satoshi Nakamoto’s coins. The result is a new, more precise range where Realized Price Alive = $59K, and the adjusted lower boundary of the range sits around $47K.

After my post on X, interesting comments appeared, and I would like to discuss one of them. The main thesis was this: if in this cycle the price did not reach the upper boundary of the Realized Price Band at $189K, then the bottom should not fall to the lower boundary of the range either. In other words, a price drop below RP Alive - which essentially reflects full market capitulation and a deep bear phase, which is what the adjusted model Bitcoin MVRV Regime actually shows - is a big question mark.

Responding to this thesis, I see the situation differently. In the 2020-2021 cycle, the market went through a parabolic rally that was then interrupted by a black swan - the mining ban in China. The main spot selling pressure fell on the cycle peak. In the last bull cycle we saw three tops, and in each of them LTHs began actively selling. Therefore I see no reason why the price cannot go below Realized Price Alive = $59K to form a proper bottom. The problem with this argument is that it assumes symmetry between the top and the bottom. But the market does not work that way. Especially given that, as I have written many times and will repeat again, real demand is only formed on long-term prospects and on the fact that real spot demand for coins appears.

Another important point - the futures market, where bears currently dominate. If you strip away all the technical nuances around Funding Rate and explain it in simple terms, the picture looks like this: traders do not believe in Bitcoin’s growth and therefore keep shorting the market. The chart clearly shows that one of the conditions for sustained price growth remains bull dominance, and that is not present in the market right now.

Overall I see the picture differently: ahead, there are likely still up to 6 months of consolidation with a test of the lower RP Alive boundaries, where the market needs to show real spot demand. As for the current recovery after the move to $60K in February - the very next day I wrote on X that the market would need time to recover. That is essentially what has been happening ever since.

This week we also updated the Terminal to version 1.6.1. The main focus was on adjusting the LLM data interpretation so that the AI more accurately reflects the real market picture.

I am genuinely glad we have two unique products - Weekly Engine and Terminal. The reason is simple: I do not believe in accurate and consistently error-free interpretation of data by a human. There are a million reasons why an analyst might distort data in their favor or simply make a mistake. A machine is not perfect either, but it is far less prone to such distortions. That is why for me the final verdict of the Weekly Engine is practically more valuable and precise than the opinion of any individual analyst.

That is exactly why I have questions about James Check’s 34-page report, which contains no concrete conclusion about what an investor should do: buy, sell, or hold. What is the point of such a report if the analyst cannot give a clear recommendation on the asset? If in an investment bank a CIO called in an analyst and asked for a report on an asset, and instead of concrete actions they brought a set of abstract scenarios and probabilities, they simply would not be taken seriously. The essence of the financial analyst profession is not to list options, but to formulate a clear position on an asset and guide the investor on what to do. That is exactly what Weekly Engine does: it delivers a recommendation based on all the data layers the machine analyzes.

Let us now move to the Weekly Engine and break down what exactly the data shows this week and how the machine interprets these signals.