Crypto's Yearly Candles
Yearly candles are an under-appreciated and under-reviewed time frame for looking at long-term secular trends in crypto.
First, you should put your chart view in log mode – otherwise the first formative years for BTC and ETH turn invisible because the candles are just too small. Zooming out, Bitcoin’s yearly log chart is incredible – straight up and to the right – with 12+ years of logarithmic growth into mainstream adoption.
It's not too dissimilar from ETH's, though Ethereum's growth appears more erratic and choppy with what – for now – appears to be a quicker leveling off in its price discovery.
Those red candles that cut into both BTC and ETH's price charts are, of course, some of the most terrible times in crypto.
Bitcoin’s 2014 red candle is the Mt. Gox crisis. BTC and ETH's 2018 candle is the aftermath of the ICO mania, and the 2022 red candle is the Luna/3AC/FTX collapse we're all far too familiar with.
If you take a close look at those charts we are about to close the most modest yearly (log) red candles in both BTC and ETH's history, and I see two possible reads here on what this means:
- The red simply isn’t done expressing itself yet and 2026 is setting up for another slightly red year.
- The industry is maturing, we haven’t actually had any major blowups to cause a crisis, and the mainstream adoption is putting a fundamental bid into the industry to keep our bear markets the most modest they’ve been.
Here's the thing – both could be true!
I do think a marginally red 2026 produces a lot of psychological pain for the industry. People are already fatigued, and collectively the industry is drying out except for a few pockets of activity – people are looking for hope and optimism and another unexciting, unthrilling year of getting slightly poorer could break the psyche of a lot of the people who have already been in that position for a bit too long.
I, too, have felt the lack of onchain fun in my life. The memecoin mania entertained only a small cohort of the industry. Perp DEXs are fun for traders, but most people aren’t traders. Yield in crypto is good, but not good enough right now to be a focus for many. And teams like Farcaster pivoting away from onchain social doesn’t offer much hope for those looking to do fun things and make money onchain.
While this sounds like despair, this is the sentiment you would expect after a 12-month red candle. This is par for the course. And the 2026 candle could start off red, too – perhaps for months – before ultimately shifting green.
My advice is this: While I expect 2026 to ultimately be green, you should psychologically prepare for another year of a slightly red candle for ETH and BTC.
There’s still a lot of progress that needs to be made in the industry to repair the damage of the Gensler era (see: current Aave Labs vs DAO misalignment, Circle acquiring Axelar but not the token, Uniswap’s UNIfication attempt), and while we are currently making fantastic progress on the regulatory front, once the work is done there is still time that needs to pass for these efforts to take hold.
So, if you plan for a marginally red year, but we ultimately receive a marginally green year (or perhaps very green), then psychologically you will be prepared to take advantage of the opportunities that will come, after everyone else burns out and leaves :)
Crypto is a game of staying alive so you’re there when the opportunity is ready for you.