BTC and ETH Falling While Altcoins Stable Is Often a ‘Sign of Strength,’ Says Analyst

Crypto analyst and macroeconomist Alex Krüger thinks the market looks ugly enough to turn bullish.

On Saturday, Krüger wrote on X, that “most crypto charts now look so broken and bearish that it’s bullish.” He argued that when price action looks this bad, the panic has usually gone far enough that a reversal may not be far behind.

The bearish charts

Krüger attached a series of charts from Binance and derivatives dashboards.

They included bitcoin BTC$108,616.58 and ether (ETH) spot price charts, both of which had fallen below short-term upward trendlines, creating a technically bearish picture. He also posted a solana SOL$200.70 chart that showed relative resilience compared with BTC and ETH.

Alongside those, he shared BTC-USDT and ETH-USDT derivatives charts, which combined futures indicators — such as funding rates and long liquidations — with options metrics like skew. Together, they showed traders had turned heavily defensive.

Liquidations and leverage reset

In his post, Krüger said long liquidations had been “significant,” especially in “the last two rounds after the close today.”

In futures markets, traders can borrow to take bullish bets. When prices fall, their collateral gets wiped out and exchanges automatically close positions. This kind of forced selling pushes prices down further in a cascade. Once it’s over, however, markets can stabilize because the excess leverage has already been flushed out.

Majors under pressure, alts steadier

The analyst also highlighted that bitcoin and ether absorbed most of the selling, while many altcoins had already stopped crashing earlier in the day. Normally, smaller tokens collapse after majors, not before them.

For Krüger, that divergence is “often a sign of upcoming strength,” suggesting panic selling may be winding down.

Krüger told followers to “check the skew,” noting that puts were much more expensive than calls. In options markets, that imbalance signals defensive positioning and heightened fear.

For contrarians like Krüger, one-sided fear often precedes a rebound, because if everyone is already hedging, there are fewer sellers left to push prices lower.

The FOMC catalyst

While he is “bullish into next week,” Krüger said he doesn’t expect strong trends to develop until after the Federal Reserve’s next policy meeting.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meets Sept. 16–17, with a rate decision and press conference at the conclusion on Sept. 17.

He expects the Fed to cut interest rates, which he argues is “not fully priced in.”

Lower rates reduce the cost of borrowing and often add liquidity, which can boost demand for risk assets like crypto.

The cycle view

Krüger emphasized that this is not the end of the cycle, even if prices fall further in the short term. At the same time, he does not expect the kind of euphoric “blow-off top” that has marked past crypto bull markets.

The one exception, he said, could be SOL, which continues to attract inflows from new decentralized treasuries deploying capital on the network.

For Krüger, the setup is straightforward: charts look ugly, liquidations are behind, options pricing screams fear, and the Fed decision looms. His message was simple — the time to bet on upside is when panic is loudest, not when celebrations begin.