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EndGame Macro
Bitcoin Is Screaming And M2 Velocity Is Whispering Something Else

A taker buy/sell ratio around 1.17 basically means the aggressive side of the market is hitting buy. On the surface, that looks powerful. But this ratio tends to spike when positioning is already crowded. It measures urgency, not depth. And in crypto, urgency is usually leverage…not slow, steady accumulation.

It feels bullish. But these are exactly the kinds of readings that show up when a market is stretched, not necessarily when it’s healthy.

And then there’s M2 velocity which tells a very different story

Let me explain M2 velocity. Velocity is a simple idea…it’s how many times a dollar changes hands in the economy. When businesses are busy, consumers are confident, and transactions are flowing, velocity rises. When things slow down and when people hesitate, save more, or just buy less frequently velocity drops.

Over the past few years, velocity collapsed to the lowest level we’ve seen in modern history (around the COVID period). Then it started climbing back up, which looked encouraging. But here’s the key…it has now stopped rising. It’s flattened out.

Think of it like a runner who sprinted off the starting line, regained speed… and is now breathing hard, leveling off, and not accelerating anymore.

That flattening is important because velocity tends to behave like a big, smooth cycle. It rises for years, peaks, then slowly rolls over. And when it rolls over, it usually reflects an economy that’s running out of momentum before the official data catches it.

You don’t need a recession for velocity to fall. You just need the pulse of the economy to stop quickening and we’re right at that turning point.

Why these two things together matter

So on one side you have Bitcoin showing aggressive buying activity. On the other, you have an economy where the pace of money changing hands is plateauing. That’s the kind of mismatch you see late in a cycle where risk assets get loud and excitable while the underlying economy gets quieter.

That’s why the buy/sell ratio can be deceiving. It tells you the market is heated, not that the foundation underneath is strengthening. If anything, the flattening of velocity suggests the opposite that the engine that drives real economic momentum may be topping out and rolling over.

My View

If Bitcoin pushes higher from here, it won’t be because the macro backdrop is improving. It’ll be because positioning and leverage overpower the fundamentals, at least temporarily.

And when that happens, the moves are faster, but so are the reversals. The aggressive buying you see isn’t telling you new investors are stepping in. It’s telling you the market is leaning harder… at the same time the broader economic current is flattening.

That’s the tension you have to pay attention to.



🔥 BULLISH: Bitcoin's market buy-to-sell ratio hit 1.17, the highest since this cycle began in Jan 2023 per CryptoQuant. https://t.co/aPjHE9ZR2T

- Cointelegraph
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