It’s Nov 21 2025 now and BTC is at 86k, MSTR around $177.

BTC was -30% from its ATH of 126k less than 2 months ago in Sept.

MSTR’s ATH of $430 was made earlier in July, and now -60% 4 months later.

The strangest thing is, there isn’t too much bad news … in fact pretty much all headwind so far, outlined in my bull case post a couple months ago.

So what is going on?

Liquidity issues

The most reasonable explanation I have been hearing is regarding liquidity.

With the government shutdown, liquidity has been temporarily squeezed.

And that might have been the trigger (or maybe be a separate occurrence) for the largest crypto liquidation event ever in October 2025, around $19B apparently.

In summary, some even profitable positions were cut mechanically from a sudden drop in price and USD stablecoin value.

And that liquidation event forced out a lot of player, and cascade to cause the exchange platforms to be really short on liquidity.

Hence the platforms are needing to sell BTC to get liquidity and that cause the downward pressure in price.

Meanwhile institutional buyers are aware of that so they are waiting on the sideline with cash until the cascade is over so they can swoop in on the bottom.

Where is the bottom?

Tom Lee just said today in an interview that it could be 77k.

I thought 100k might have been the line. Then I thought 90k must be the line.

Crashed from 90k+ to now 84k within 2 days. (Was just 86k an hour ago when I started this post)

So the conclusion is, really cannot predict when the bottom is in. Which is why I stick to the “rotation” strategy.

Just buy when others are stronger relative to the thing that is selling off.

Fortunately this round, gold had stood pretty steadily and still above 4000 at this point

And while I rotate, I like to keep letting it slide at least 1-2% below the target level, just so if it goes lower I can still buy more, and if it rises back then I don’t have to sell immediately at a low point.

Through the turbulence, just gotta stay liquid and don’t get margin calls. Keep stacking at the lows and it will eventually recover.

I still think that the bottom should be above the tariff lows of 75k, but keeping the possibility open for 60-70k.

Looking at the rate of today’s fall though, I am just a bit more sure that the bottom is VERY near, because this is capitulation selling.

Let’s see 80k can mark the bottom or not.

Why has MSTR dropped so much more?

So I was already a bit surprised when MSTR experienced quite a bit downward pressure while BTC was flat.

Which is reasonable I suppose given the bearishness on BTC.

Anyway just today I heard Tom Lee talked about another reason why especially in recent days MSTR is falling like a rock.

Apparently, big players cannot easily short BTC or crypto, say for example $1B btc long can only short maybe a few percent.

However, they can use liquid stocks like MSTR to trade options and get some downside protection, which of course put downward pressure on price of MSTR.

At this point of 1.0x mnav, in my opinion MSTR is very unreasonably underpriced and it’s a buying opportunity that comes probably once in a few years.

Last time would have to be the bear market of 2022 in the midst of FTX collapse and such.

With intelligence leverage and proper management, there is no reason why it wouldn’t deserve a multiple.

And if the market isn’t willing to assign it one, there would still be underlying BTC growth per share, which means as long as BTC CAGR is above the interest rate they make, the stock will grow faster than BTC itself.

Leverage make growth exponential – if they are 10% levered, next year there will be 110% gains compared to bitcoin itself. And because the underlying increased in value, their leverage ratio drops, and they can re-lever back up and create more gains from the extra leverage amount, even if the percentage is staying the same.

I will maintain Lyn’s viewpoint of 1.2-1.8x being “reasonable” – cautiously bullish. Previously I might have thought 2x is reasonable, but maybe I will lower my expectation a bit since during a bear market it can easily drop to sub 1.

How long will it take to recover to ATH and beyond?

Fortunately in this “bear run”, I feel quite a bit less stressful compared to the “tariff shock” back in March – April 2025.

Because this time there are basically no headwind, and on the other hand many tailwinds.

Therefore I maintain my opinion that this is a very temporary “bear” drawdown in a continuous bull run.

I was less sure about the April tariff shock because it’s not certain what Trump would do. But this bear run has no legs and there is no uncertainty about some prolonged selloff.

And I definitely think the 4-year BTC cycle is over. 125k was not a local top and it won’t take 1-2 years to recover to ATH and beyond.

If I had to guess, I am shooting for recovery to ATH within 3-6 months.

Temporary liquidity shock don’t create lasting bear markets. And all the bullish trends are still in tact, if not actually increased (for example Takachi being new Japan PM and huge stimulus in Japan coming)

My current BTC target is $150k by June of 2026, and target for MSTR is $500/share by then.

Not high certainty though, if not just keep stacking when it gets cheaper than previous buy.

Will revisit this post in 3-6 months and see where things go.