Foundations.
The vocabulary.
The concepts everything else stands on: momentum, dominance, funding, ATR, Sharpe, drawdown, liquidity. Answer-first explainers, each tied to how a rules-based crypto board actually uses the idea rather than the textbook abstraction.
26 notes · Foundations
VWAP in crypto, explained: average price since when? The anchor is the answer.
The crowd's average price, weighted by a statistic this market manufactures: the anchoring problem, execution vs signal uses, and regime dependence.
How to read a crypto candlestick chart: minutes of the meeting, not the next one's agenda.
OHLC anatomy, why equity gap playbooks fail in a gapless market, wicks as cascade footprints, the missing tape, and a verdict on pattern folklore.
Crypto moving averages explained: a ruler laid on the past. Don't ask it for the future.
Smoothing filters on an invented close: calendar vs trading-day divergence, MAs as regime definition, and exactly how the monitor and dial use them.
Crypto slippage explained: paper fills at the print. You fill down the book.
Spread, impact and timing decomposed, a thin order book walked step by step, why slippage explodes at stops and in stress, and what backtests must disclose.
Dollar volume in crypto, explained: the chart said buy. The book said how much.
Value traded, not tokens counted: why medians beat means, the printed-volume-vs-book-depth distinction, and why liquidity is a momentum problem at the exit.
Alpha vs beta in crypto, explained: the tide moved the boat. Invoice says seamanship.
One regression strips the costume: beta as the tide of BTC exposure, alpha as what remains, and negative alpha hiding inside spectacular bull returns.
Not your keys, your creditor's claim number.
An exchange balance is a company's promise; bankruptcy makes it an unsecured claim. The FTX sequence, proof-of-reserves and its limits, segmentation habits.
The ruler bent. Every measurement moved.
When the quote asset breaks, every pair priced in it prints a phantom move: depeg mechanics, the UST and USDC episodes, and contaminated backtests.
There is no cash here. Only cash-shaped tokens.
The dollar-shaped tokens under the market: three collateral designs, their distinct failure modes, and why risk-off in crypto is itself a position.
One of these you own. The other owns a piece of you.
Spot ownership vs margined, funded, liquidatable perpetuals: why perp volume dominates the tape, and the three costs the screenshot leaves out.
The chart shows demand. The schedule shows supply.
Vesting cliffs, linear unlocks, continuous emissions: how scheduled token supply reaches the market, what unlocks reliably do, and the calendar's value.
Compute where the cliff is. Then stand well back.
The growth-optimal bet size and its violence: the Kelly formula, 50/50 odds of halving at full Kelly, zero growth at double, and why fractional is sane.
Survival first. Compounding is for the survivors.
The probability the game ends: ruin as an absorbing state, streak arithmetic at 1/2/5/10% risk, why losing streaks are scheduled, crypto's accelerants.
Up 50, down 50 is down 25.
The gap between average and compounded returns: the half-sigma-squared rule, a fair coin losing 69% a year, and leveraged decay at crypto volatility.
Risk is losing money, not making it irregularly.
Sharpe with a fairer denominator: downside deviation only. Why right-skewed momentum profiles deserve it, and how the Sharpe/Sortino gap detects skew.
Return per unit of risk, flattered by the calendar.
Return per unit of risk, and the 20% flattery crypto's 365-day calendar adds to every annualized Sharpe: the definition, failure modes, and our deflation.
How far does it actually move? One number answers it.
Average True Range from zero: Wilder's formula, why 24/7 trading shrinks true range, percentage ATR, and its three jobs: stops, sizing, and regime.
Three majors up, eighty alts bleeding: breadth is how you know.
The share of the board actually participating: the standard breadth measures, why breadth matters doubly in a one-factor market, and our dial's input.
Fix the loss first. The position is just division.
Risk-first position sizing with a worked example: why volatility shrinks size, the portfolio-heat trap when correlations hit one, and survival arithmetic.
Equities have industries. Tokens have stories.
Equities have industries; tokens have stories. The working crypto sector taxonomy, what membership predicts, the diversification illusion, the fine print.
A real mechanism, a real correlation, and a sample of four.
A real mechanism, a real correlation, a sample of four: the halving supply-shock theory stated fairly, the confounders, and the post-ETF divergence.
A fine thermometer, a terrible oracle.
One division, two distortions: the stablecoin denominator problem, summed market caps, what dominance readings have accompanied, and the joint read.
The chart shows the market cap. The obligation is the FDV.
Market cap vs FDV: the low-float worked example, unlock cliffs and emission drips, the float-ratio habit, and why momentum screens attract this failure.
A poll where every respondent pays to vote.
The mechanism that anchors perpetuals to spot, the annualized arithmetic that makes 0.01% expensive, and funding as a paid poll of positioning.
No news behind the candle. Just leverage meeting thin bids.
The forced-selling chain reaction behind crypto's newsless crashes: the mechanics, why this market breeds them, famous episodes, and how to read one.
The drawdown is the result. The return is the compensation.
BTC has lost three quarters of its value twice in a decade; alt drawdowns start at 90%. The base rates, the recovery curve, and what depth does to decisions.