The most important part of any market is liquidity.. without it, nothing moves.
Think of it like gas to a car. It’s that important.
I’m constantly asking myself.. is liquidity entering? Is it leaving? And how is price responding to either condition?
There are varying metrics in the tradfi markets to track liquidity.. the Fed, banking metrics, ETF flows, etc.
But in crypto.. it’s a lot more simple. You can track the entire market cap of the crypto market by using a single ticker.
The chart I want to start with today is TOTAL.
If you haven’t used it before, this is TradingView’s total crypto market cap chart. It gives me a view of the asset class before I start scanning through Bitcoin, Ethereum, or something more speculative.
And right now, it’s trying to break higher.. along with Bitcoin.
This is the same process we’ve been working through with stocks.
Start with the bigger picture, find where strength is developing, then work down to the individual setup.
There is one catch with TOTAL though.. Bitcoin may be the most important component of the crypto ecosystem but Ethereum also plays a big role (along with stablecoins). The whole chart can move higher without the average shitcoin doing particularly well.
For that, I checked TOTAL3.. which removes Bitcoin, Ethereum, and stablecoins.
That chart is challenging the upper end of its recent range too. The strength we’ve seen in crypto is falling down into the most volatile and speculative assets in the crypto space.
That gives me more to work with. It doesn’t mean every shitcoin is participating.. but this move reaches beyond Bitcoin.
I think this is where crypto gets useful even if you spend most of your time trading stocks.
People talk about liquidity like there’s one number we can pull up that tells us how aggressive to be. I’d love for it to be that easy.. in practice I’m looking at several things that answer different questions.
Rates and financial conditions tell me about the backdrop. Prices show me what traders are willing to pay. Fund flows help me check whether a particular trading vehicle is actually attracting new capital or not.
Those things can diverge for a while.
But the way I learned it is “liquidity leaves footprints.”
I’m looking for strength that starts showing up in more places. Especially further out on the risk curve.
And the backdrop is as good of a reason as any to start looking at crypto. The Fed just raised its target range by 25bps and the US 10-year was over 5%. There’s a million reasons why crypto should not be working right now..
And yet the charts are improving. Money is flowing in. And prices are heading higher.
I pay attention when that happens.
Bitcoin and IBIT still have a level to clear
Bitcoin is back above $80,000 as I write this.
It’s trading above its anchored VWAP from its all-time highs. Momentum is accelerating higher. And it’s working on breaking out of a multi-week consolidation fractal.
IBIT is my preferred way to trade Bitcoin through my brokerage account. It even has (very) liquid options. And it’s breaking out alongside the Bitcoin chart.
Here it is also trading above its anchored VWAP from its all-time highs.
This is where entry mechanics matter.. a lot.
If I’m trading a horizontal breakout, I want price to clear the level with participation.. and I need a place where the trade is wrong. Then I can work out whether the distance to that point makes sense to trade. The reward-to-risk has to be high enough for me to commit capital.
If I have to put my stop way down at the bottom of the range to make the chart look safe, the position gets smaller. Sometimes the better decision is to wait for a tighter setup. But today is not that day.
I’m a big believer that ETF flows are an integral part of today’s markets. More and more passive (and active) buyers show up in ETFs.. which directly put buying pressure onto the stocks inside. So I naturally checked the ETF flows for Bitcoin.
Inflows. Across the board. And yet no one is talking about it.
When IBIT is getting bought and price is breaking out and no one is talking about it.. I want in.
And I am.
I’ve already sold half of my position to turn the trade-risk free and take some profit. The rest of the position can continue to ride higher as long as the trend continues to pay me.
This is what makes TTI special. Understanding how to manage risk into big wins. No one talk about this.
Ethereum gives me another piece of the picture
Ethereum is where it gets really fun. Trading above its range high within increasing momentum, Ethereum actually gives me a cleaner trading vehicle than Bitcoin does.
What I like is that Ethereum has also gained ground against Bitcoin over the past month. The ETHBTC chart is breaking out once again against Bitcoin.
Last cycle Ethereum outperformed Bitcoin by over 400%. Yes — you read that right.
Bitcoin go the headlines near $70,000. But traders who owned Ethereum completely crushed traders who only owned Bitcoin. And it’s happening again.
ETH has outperformed BTC by 77% since April 2025. And 22% from just three months ago. That’s what I mean when I talk about opportunity cost. Very few traders talk about it because very few traders actually trade. They spend all their time writing Substack articles. :)
ETHA is my vector of attack here. More volatile than IBIT and a very liquid options chain.
So naturally I am in.
What I’m watching from here
TOTAL is the first chart I want to see hold up. A close above the recent range, followed by buyers defending that area, would allow me to add more size into the trade.
Then I want to see IBIT and ETHA get through their own resistance, with the shitcoin market continuing to participate. Repeated positive ETF flows would add confidence too.
Remember.. my Bitcoin trade is already risk-free (I sold the double at over 100% in profit). My Ethereum trade is still fully risked.
That combination would make me more interested in putting more capital to work in the crypto space.
It still wouldn’t tell me to increase risk across every stock I own. I’d run it alongside market direction, participation, sector rotation, and financial conditions, just as we do in the Market Blueprint.
If you want to work through that process with us, TTI Membership is where we connect the market context to individual opportunities, entries, risk, and trade management. This is the kind of work that sits behind the names we’re considering.
For now, I’m interested. The broader crypto environment has improved enough to deserve my attention and thus my money. The next question is whether these individual setups can continue to perform as well as they have.. and if there are any additional entries lurking.
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And if you want to reach out to me, you can do so on X at @capitalflows or by messaging me here on Substack.
Thanks for reading.
Hamilton