Bitcoin may be approaching a more consequential upside move if current technical and on-chain trends hold, according to Capriole founder Charles Edwards, who argued in a new market note that a cluster of macro, sentiment and blockchain indicators has shifted in a more constructive direction despite a volatile geopolitical backdrop.
Edwards framed the current environment as unusually difficult to navigate, with markets swinging between war fears, oil spikes and a fast-moving AI threat landscape. Even so, he said the underlying signal from Bitcoin and broader macro data is increasingly hard to ignore, particularly if BTC can sustain a monthly and weekly close above $71,500, a level he described as a critical threshold.
Bitcoin Technicals And On-Chain Turn Bullish
On price structure alone, Edwards said a close above $71,500 would mark Bitcoin’s strongest technical monthly finish in a year. On the daily chart, he described the recent move as even more encouraging, citing an engulfing advance and notable relative strength against other markets since the start of the Iran war.
That relative performance matters in his framework because Bitcoin had largely traded like a risk asset over the prior nine months.
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He paired that chart view with a series of on-chain signals that, in his view, resemble prior accumulation zones. Normalized dormancy is low, which he said suggests long-term holders are not distributing into weakness. He also pointed to renewed “restacking” by longer-dated holders, including a recent turn in the 2-year-plus cohort, and to deeply depressed SOPR readings, which historically have often coincided with stronger forward Bitcoin opportunities.
Miners are sending a similar message, he argued. Edwards said the market remains in a deep miner capitulation phase, referencing Hash Ribbons, while miner sell pressure is also unusually subdued. He added that one of the most important charts in his stack now shows institutions as net buyers again, a backdrop he said has accompanied every major Bitcoin appreciation phase of the last five years when demand exceeded newly mined supply.
Taken together, the message was straightforward: “Amongst this swathe of data (and more) it’s hard not to be bullish on Bitcoin above $71.5K.”
Macro Fear Is Fading, But Not Gone
Edwards also tied Bitcoin’s improving backdrop to traditional market gauges. He highlighted a recent VIX macro buy signal after volatility dropped from above 30 toward the 20 area, a CNN Fear & Greed reading back in buy territory, and what he called the biggest weekly jump in US liquidity since May 2025. In his telling, those shifts suggest markets are beginning to move past the sharpest phase of geopolitical panic.
That matters because, in his reading, markets are increasingly treating the Iran conflict as a contained risk rather than a lasting macro shock. Oil has moved back below $100, the US-Iran ceasefire is in place, and Bitcoin has outperformed equities by 11% since the war began, according to Edwards. For an asset that had spent months in a broad downtrend, he sees that as a meaningful change in character.
He went further, arguing that markets may now be entering what he called “volatility fatigue,” a phase in which investors begin discounting daily headline reversals and return to pricing liquidity, growth and fundamentals instead.
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Still, the note was not purely a bullish market call. Edwards spent substantial time on what he sees as a growing AI-driven security threat to crypto infrastructure, especially DeFi and complex smart contract systems. He argued that increasingly capable models will compress the time needed to discover and exploit vulnerabilities from months to minutes.
His advice was blunt: “If you don’t have a really good reason to use complex DeFi protocols and smart contracts, you probably shouldn’t be as we enter this new AI realm. Think about it. Is it really worth the complexity of juicing out that extra few basis points to lend/borrow/bridge/stake/restake?”
That caution sits alongside the bullish case rather than against it. Edwards’ broader argument is that the market is starting to reward opportunity over fear, but only for investors who remain disciplined on risk.
“Let’s not overweight the problems in our head, but be prepared accordingly,” he wrote. “Long-term performance has historically rewarded those that position for the optimistic outcome, while concurrently managing risks, diligently monitoring the data and acting with strong conviction. In short, if the current move breaks down next week, and risk metrics start flashing, our systematic portfolio will pivot accordingly. Until then, things look great for Bitcoin and equites today.”
At press time, BTC traded at $74,117.
Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
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