Weekly column: Bitcoin’s warning and the bursting of the Silver bubble

Review

The festive mood that powered the crypto market in early 2025 gave way to a hangover. Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency, finished the year below $88,000 after retreating more than 30% from early October, when it peaked at above $126,000. Since then, digital assets have lost more than $1 trillion in market value.

— Vicky Ge Huang, “Crypto Investors Celebrated for Most of 2025. Then Came the Hangover,” www.wsj.com, January 1, 2026.

The CME’s announcement of a second margin hike on precious metals futures in three days has sent shockwaves through the markets on the final day of trading in 2025, with experts wondering if this signals the end of the multi-year precious metals bull market.

— Ernest Hoffman, “Silver, Platinum, and Palladium ‘Became Meme Stocks’ and CME was Forced to Preserve the Integrity of those Markets,” www.kitco.com, December 31, 2025.

Happy New Year! And get ready for another wild year of political chaos that could very well spill over into financial markets’ chaos.

You might literally wonder if there was a Silver lining to financial markets in 2025. Indeed, Silver exploded in the last quarter of 2025, rallying in a parabolic burst to an all-time high of 82.67 early last week, December 29, before two hefty increases in margin requirements brought the semi-precious metal back to $70.00 just two days later as the year ended. It then started Friday’s New Year off strong, but ended the session only slightly higher.

Gold was also strong, but its all-time high of $4584 was recorded on the Friday before, December 26, thus creating a case of intermarket bearish divergence last week. By Wednesday, December 31, Gold had fallen $300 from that high. These types of price movements are historically related to sudden increases in margin requirements. They are also associated with outer planet aspects involving Uranus or Neptune, the planets symbolizing bubbles in financial markets. Currently, Saturn is nearing its 36-year synodic cycle (conjunction) with Neptune on February 20, 2026. Some readers may remember the last time Saturn conjoined Neptune in 1989 as the year the Japanese Nikkei exploded in a parabolic bubble to its then all-time high. Then, once the bubble burst, which was just one month after the conjunction ended, the Nikkei began a nearly 19-year bear market that didn’t end until October 2008.

The “bubble” taking place in Silver this year was no coincidence to financial astrologers. After all, Jupiter (exaggeration) is transiting Cancer, the sign traditionally associated with Silver. Jupiter will remain in Cancer until June 30, 2026. Then it ingresses into Leo, the sign traditionally associated with Gold.

Gold, Silver, Copper, and Platinum were not the only markets soaring to new all-time highs in 2025, a year we had described as a new era of “Chaos” in our webinars of early 2025. Many global stock indices also soared to record highs, including those in the U.S., Japan, Australia, India, Germany, the UK, and the Netherlands. Most have remained near their all-time highs as the year ended.

However, another market that made a new all-time high in 2025 but did not keep its gains was Bitcoin. After peaking at $126,223 on October 6, it fell all the way back to 80,553 on November 21, a loss of 36%. This fits well with our special alerts and webinars given between May and September, calling for a re-test of the all-time high of August 14 at 124,481 to be completed by October, followed by a 73-93% decline by the end of 2026. Time will tell if that forecast proves to be correct, but it’s off to a good start. In the meantime, it would not surprise us if the stock market follows a similar path in 2026 as Bitcoin did in 2025. We will have more special market updates in the coming weeks on these markets, including our annual Forecast Webinar on February 22.

Short-term geocosmics

USMCA, the world’s largest free-trade zone as measured by economic output, is at risk of unraveling…. the first half of 2026 is going to look eerily similar to the first half of 2025, with the president threatening both Canada and Mexico with new tariffs—especially if negotiations seem to be going off track.

— Josh Lipsky, “Prepare for More Tariffs in 2026,” Wall Street Journal, December 30, 2026.

One of the striking contradictions of President Trump’s tariffs is the way his chorus claims their rousing success even as he carves out hundreds of exceptions. Rarely has a president worked so hard to cover the damage from his policies without admitting it.

— Opinion: Review & Outlook, “Another Trump Tariff Retreat,” The Wall Street Journal, January 2, 2026.

The first part of the New Year starts out with a cosmic bang. The Sun, Venus, and Mars will all conjoin in Capricorn, in opposition to Jupiter, January 7-10. The Sun-Mars conjunction has a strong correlation to primary cycle highs and/or lows within 3 weeks, often involving an 8% or greater reversal in world stock indices. That would equate to a nearly 4000-point swing in the DJIA. Additionally, the Sun/Jupiter opposition is one of the strongest correlations we have researched to primary cycle highs or lows within 10 trading days. It also has a 50% correlation to a 50-week or greater cycle within two weeks in the DJIA.

As we look at the entirety of January, we find 12 major planetary signatures with a historical correlation to stock market reversals in effect, January 7-27. The midpoint is the weekend of January 16-19, as the Sun and Venus both ingress into Aquarius. But January 19-27 is also highlighted as the Sun, Venus, and Mars will then conjoin Pluto, the planet of debt and tax conflicts, as well as a signature often related to threats to human life or crops, via either natural or human-caused calamities. This is not a time to be a lender or borrower. However, it may coincide with large rallies in food prices, where damage to crops may occur due to adverse weather conditions.

Long-term geocosmics and thoughts

“Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom,” Ben Franklin wrote. “As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”

— Brett Baier, “Teddy Roosevelt’s Powerful Lessons—Strength, Duty, Country,” www.foxnews.com/opinion, October 21, 2025.

A man can get a temporary thrill from making money. But if all he has to show for his life’s work is a financial balance, he cannot derive a great deal of satisfaction. A man must be able to say that “my work has been of such a character that I have benefited my fellow man.”

— Andrew Ross Sorkin, quoting Forbes magazine in 1930, in his book titled 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History, Penguin Books, October 2025.

One of the basic rules taught in our 2-year MMTA program (Merriman Market Timing Academy) is that long-term market cycles culminate or bottom when long-term planetary cycles are unfolding. Long-term planetary cycles involve major aspects among Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and/or Pluto. Between mid-2025 and early 2026, all four are involved in major aspects with one another.

Saturn, conjunct Neptune at 0° Aries, is the most powerful. But so are Uranus and Pluto, which are trine one another and form a double sextile to Saturn and Neptune. Jupiter joins this remarkable and unusual configuration on July 20-21, 2026, shortly after it enters the fire sign Leo, where it will sextile Uranus, trine Neptune (and Saturn shortly after), while also forming a powerful opposition to Pluto.

Somewhere between Saturn’s sextile with Uranus on January 14 and Jupiter making its rash of aspects to Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto in late July, I would expect the long-term cycle crest in stocks to culminate. Unfortunately, outer planet aspects of these types require an orb of up to four months, so one will have to listen carefully for the banging of the gong that announces the bear has come out of hibernation. This is a market joke, of course, for there is no sounding of the gong that takes place when the final high is happening, despite many who will likely claim that they know (or knew) exactly when that moment will arrive. They won’t know it until well after it has happened.

However, I think there is a reason for financial astrologers to believe it will happen in 2026, based on historical correlations from past market tops. The problem is that the orb of influence of these aspects is quite long, especially with so many outer planet aspects unfolding in early and mid-2026. To me, this suggests a year of more chaos, consisting of many false sell signals involving brief but sharp declines that suddenly reverse back up again. The tell signal will be when each of these rallies fails to make new highs, and each of the declines starts to make new multi-month lows. Watch for it, especially as Saturn starts to separate from Neptune after February 20, 2026. Look at the chart of Bitcoin in 2025. The pattern may be similar in 2026 to what happened in stocks, with a top followed by a secondary high that may also be a double-top chart formation, just as Bitcoin exhibited in August and October 2025.

Most market pundits seem certain that 2026 will be just as impressive as the prior three years. I think it would be better to be a contrarian to the sentiment of the public and financial media this year. I would not be surprised to see a taste of this in January with the Sun conjunct Mars, and both in opposition to the overconfident Jupiter.