I think that this ending diagonal case for Bitcoin is the most likely one, by a good amount. It has several external factors pointing towards a rise to 53k.

1) A Low Volume Node in the volume profile at 53k
2) Retail sentiment is quite bearish , reading at 32/100. It would make sense to wash them out by pushing higher. This bearish sentiment is also shown by a larger amount of puts being purchased than calls, which is quite rare for crypto markets.
3) Open interest fell as price fell, showing a weak downtrend without enough longs for fuel to move lower
4) The 1 month volume MA on Binance, the most liquid exchange, fell from 47.6K BTC to 40 .2K BTC , showing a lack of force pushing the downtrend forwards
5) The D wave needs to be bigger on the triangle, and the ending diagonal would do this
6) Max pain for Bitcoin is at 43k, there is a lack of incentive to push price far below this as the bear count requires
7) The ending diagonal just “feels” right. All of these moves show as 3 waves, in a very clean way.
8) Stocks appear to also be ready for a final 5th wave up, and since they are correlated this adds confidence for bitcoin’s count.

Is there any case for the bears?

They want this to be a complete X wave, with price ready to smash lower on extreme volatility . The bearish count looks like this one, and it is NOT pretty for bitcoin .

This count is my second most probable idea, following the ending diagonal case. It’s not my favorite, but we can still make a case for it even so.

1) Insider traders have dramatically slowed down their buying of stocks. Stocks are highly correlated to crypto, so this is not a great signal.

And that’s really about it, I can’t find anything else to build the case here.

There are other counts, like one calling this a 1,2 1,2 up with bitcoin skyrocketing up, but this one is very silly and makes no sense in the current macro economic risk off phase and with the coming recession due to the yield curve inversion. On top of this, the count itself is extremely ugly and basically calls the wave 2, which retraces the wave 1 to a very very extreme level, a triangle, which is not even allowed.

Let’s close with the probability estimates, since trading is a game of odds.

Bull count: 70% chance. Bear count: 20% chance. Unexpected alternative: 10% chance.

I am positioned well for this either way it goes, because I am holding a pile of bitcoins and a fat stack of cash ready to buy bitcoins for 20k each if I am given the chance. I will probably dump some of the BTC at the 50k to 53k depending on how price unfolds.