The $115K Hangover

Internal monologue of a Bitcoin maximalist at 3:47 AM

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Can't sleep. Again.

Bitcoin sliding to $115.5K from its all-time high of $123K recorded on July 14 feels like watching your favorite fighter take a haymaker to the jaw. You know they're getting back up, but for that split second, everything goes quiet and your stomach drops into your shoes.

The market has dropped 6.9% and suddenly everyone's a macro expert again. "Oh, it's the Fed's hawkish stance." "It's profit-taking before earnings." "It's institutional rebalancing."

Bullshit.

This is what volatility looks like when you're holding the future in your portfolio. This is what happens when crypto market cap hits $4 trillion for the first time ever and half the world still thinks we're trading Monopoly money. This is growing pains at light speed.

I've been through this dance before. Remember when BTC hit $20K in 2017 and everyone said it was done forever? When it crashed to $3K and the obituaries started printing? When it clawed back to $69K and crashed to $16K and every talking head declared cryptocurrency dead?

Yeah. How'd that work out?

THE MATH KEEPS MATHING

Finder.com reports that Bitcoin is predicted to reach $145,167 by 2025, $458,647 by 2030, and over $1 million by 2035. Some shop called 10x Research has a year-end bitcoin target range of $140,000 to $160,000.

But here's what kills me—we're sitting at $115K, up roughly 60% year-to-date, and people are panicking about a pullback. A PULLBACK. From levels that would have been science fiction 18 months ago.

Ethereum has broken below the key $3,600 support level. So what? ETH is still trading at prices that made millionaires out of degens who bought the 2022 lows. XRP is hovering just above $3—remember when $3 XRP was moon talk?

THE VISCERAL REALITY

Trading Bitcoin in 2025 feels like being strapped to a rocket that's simultaneously heading to Mars and occasionally threatening to explode. Your rational brain knows the fundamentals: institutional adoption accelerating, regulatory clarity improving, monetary debasement continuing at breakneck speed.

Your lizard brain? It's screaming about every red candle, every "expert" prediction, every tweet from some anonymous account with a laser-eyes avatar claiming the end times are here.

I'm watching my net worth swing by six figures daily and pretending this is normal. Because it IS normal now. This is what holding the hardest money ever created feels like when the rest of the world is slowly figuring it out.

THE 3 AM CONFESSION

Want to know the truth? The reason I can't sleep isn't the price action. It's the knowing.

Knowing that we're living through the greatest monetary shift in human history, in real time, while most people are worried about their mortgage rates and grocery bills. Knowing that every dip gets bought by institutions who understand the game better than retail ever will. Knowing that the infrastructure being built—ETFs, stablecoins, DeFi protocols, Lightning Network adoption—makes this current price volatility look like static noise.

The hangover from $123K to $115K hurts because it reminds you how far we've come and how much further we're going. When you're riding the lightning, every turbulence pocket feels like a plane crash until you remember you're not in a plane.

You're in a spaceship.

And we're just getting started.

Fuck it. Buying the dip.