- The Warmup by Kaizen
- Posts
- 2026 Positioning Starts Now
2026 Positioning Starts Now
PLUS: Bitcoin Reclaims $90K
Welcome back to The Warmup.
Remember checking your crypto portfolio 3 months ago? Yeah… we don’t talk about that anymore.
Here’s what we’re watching:
Market Snapshot
2026 Positioning Starts Now
OKLO Falling Wedge Reversal
Bitcoin Reclaims $90K
Calendar
Market: Markets are mixed and choppy, with crypto largely flat, equities drifting lower, and volatility picking up as risk appetite stays fragile.
2026 Positioning Starts Now
What’s going on:
Holiday conditions kept markets sleepy this week. With low volume across the board, Bitcoin drifted slightly lower, giving investors space to step back and reassess the bigger picture rather than short-term price noise.
That wider lens shows a surprising 2025 winner: precious metals.
Gold just wrapped up its strongest year since the late ’70s, up ~70% and breaking to fresh ATHs above $4,500. Silver went even harder, up ~160% on the year and hitting new records.
Meanwhile in crypto, a quieter but more important shift is happening. Value creation is moving from blockchains themselves to the apps built on top of them.
On Solana, applications now generate roughly three times more revenue than the underlying network.
What it means:
Heading into 2026, some of the best risk-reward may sit in liquid DeFi tokens. Many quality projects are trading near cycle lows despite improving fundamentals.
If markets start valuing where revenue actually shows up, applications (not infrastructure) could be next in line for a re-rating.
OKLO Falling Wedge Reversal
What’s going on:
Oklo ripped nearly 19x in 2025, topping around $194 in October, then sold off hard and now trades near $76.
The prior move was clearly overextended, and risks remain high: pre-revenue, no operating reactors, and heavy execution and licensing uncertainty.
Key levels we’re watching:
Structure: Falling wedge
Trigger: Break above wedge resistance
Upside: Fast relief rally if volume confirms
Invalidation: Breakdown below wedge support
Directional Bias: Speculative bullish
What we’re waiting for:
Clean breakout above the wedge
Volume expansion on the move
Confirmation of RSI bullish divergence
Bitcoin Reclaims $90K
What’s going on:
Bitcoin briefly pushed above $90,000 over the weekend, topping out near $90.2K before giving back some gains. The move came on thin, holiday liquidity and looks driven more by technicals than fresh catalysts.
$90K had been a clear resistance level throughout December. Once price broke above it, short covering and momentum buying kicked in.
Some also point to relief from options expiries and a bounce off key technical support after weeks of consolidation.
Despite the pop, BTC has largely gone sideways this month, trading between roughly $86.5K and $90K. ETF outflows tied to tax-loss harvesting and year-end de-risking have kept a lid on upside.
Sentiment, however, is stabilizing, with Fear & Greed ticking up from “extreme fear” to “fear.”
What it means:
Holiday conditions are amplifying price moves, but not changing the broader setup. The key question heading into January is whether Bitcoin can hold above $90K once liquidity returns.
Relative value is also creeping back into focus. Stocks, gold, and silver are sitting near ATHs, while Bitcoin continues to lag.
If ETF flows stabilize and early-2026 catalysts materialize, this range could eventually resolve higher but for now, BTC remains boxed in.
 | BNB: |
 | PENGU: |
 | AAVE: |
Key Events this Week
Major token unlocks:
Zora (ZORA): ~$7M unlock on Dec 30 (~4% of supply)
Kamino (KMNO): ~$12M unlock on Dec 30 (~5% of supply)
Macroeconomic data calendar:
Mon (Dec 29):
November Pending Home Sales: Forward-looking housing indicator → strength suggests demand is stabilizing; weakness keeps pressure on the housing market narrative.
Tue (Dec 30):
Fed Meeting Minutes: Deeper insight into the Fed’s latest policy discussion → markets will parse language for confidence on inflation and the timing of future rate moves.
Wed (Dec 31):
Initial Jobless Claims: Weekly labor market check-in → rising claims hint at cooling employment; low claims reinforce labor resilience.
Thu (Jan 1):
China’s Silver Export Restrictions Begin: Supply-side shift → could tighten industrial silver markets and ripple into manufacturing inputs.
US Stock Market Closed: New Year’s Day holiday
Fri (Jan 2):
December S&P Global Manufacturing PMI: Factory activity snapshot → above 50 signals expansion; below 50 suggests contraction.
What happens next? |
Most people expect 2026 to be a brutal bear market because they are anchored to the old four year cycle, but that framework was built for a very different policy era.
The data shows this cycle already broke between 2022 and 2024, with liquidity and economic activity behaving in ways we have not seen since 1948.
As tightening reaches its finale and the shift toward easing begins, the next real upside window for crypto, especially altcoins, is still ahead.
Watch liquidity and the ISM, not the calendar, because if those turn higher, the best part of this cycle is still in front of us.
— The Warmup Team
Always do your own research. This newsletter is supplemental material to help educate readers as they make their own decisions. Projects mentioned here are provided to give a potential early-mover advantage.