BITCOIN REVEALED: The True Story | September 16, 2026

I grew up with nothing. Success felt
impossible until I found crypto in 2018.
I made every mistake, chasing hype and
holding coins to nearly zero. I then
found technical analysis and it changed
everything. My perspective [music] on
this industry and my success within it.
Now I'm passing that knowledge on to
you. Welcome to Bitcoin Revealed, the
true story.
>> Hey folks, Nick Valdez here, chief
crypto strategist for Verified Investing
and it is a huge day for Bitcoin because
it is FOMC and we have Kevin Wars coming
out and speaking in about 1 hour and
that's going to have major effects on
Bitcoin. But we need to get into the
Delorean. Let's go back in time. We're
going to hit 88 miles per hour and see
well is this going to push Bitcoin to
88,000 or are we heading lower? So,
we're going to look at in the past what
happened with FOMC rate hikes
specifically because right now the
market is pricing in. We are going to
head up 25 basis points and this is
going to be the first rate hike we have
seen since the year 2023. So, major
major inflection point for Bitcoin today
folks. So, go ahead smash that like
button. I do read all the comments and I
I was reading the comments. You guys
want me to check some Athena. We'll look
at Athena. I see your comments. Uh
talking about link XLM. We got a little
time towards the end of the show. We'll
look at that as well. And people saying,
"What's up from Vegas?" Well, hey,
what's up? Right back at you. But let's
go ahead and jump into the liquidation
heat map, everybody. So, this is kind of
what we're seeing right now. Bitcoin's
price is just flat. This is the 12hour
heat map. And so, we're just looking at
the 12-h hour candles, and you can see
Bitcoin has just been flat for hours and
hours. uh you go all the I mean we had a
little volatility around 7 8 a.m. and
then if you look right around 9:00 a.m.
Bitcoin is just essentially trading
sideways but the bright lines that
you're seeing above and below Bitcoin's
price are leverage positions where
traders are going to get liquidated and
oftentimes you see the price push up
into those colors. And so let me know
down in the comments or in the live chat
who is going to get wrecked today. Is it
going to be the shorts above? Are they
getting liquidated? Is it the longs
getting liquidated or is it gonna chop
all around and everybody is getting
liquidated? So that's kind of what we're
seeing in the Bitcoin chart. So what is
happening on Wall Street? Wall Street is
selling and they are selling massive
massive amounts of Bitcoin. This is the
most outflows we have seen and I I read
your comments like well it's not Black
Rockck buying. It's not Fidelity. I I
get it is it's them buying on behalf of
their clients, but at the end of the
day, the buying and the selling are
these large hedge funds, these large
banking institutions. We haven't seen
these banks sell this much Bitcoin since
June. How much did they sell? $450
million worth. Zero of the five funds
that had flows added any capital.
Everybody was a seller. Fidelity came in
number one. Number two was Black Rockck.
And we have the numbers right here. They
sold $214 million worth of Bitcoin and
$161 million worth of Bitcoin. You
combine those two totals, folks, we are
looking at $4,960
Bitcoin. Basically, almost 5,000
Bitcoin. We haven't seen outflows like
this since June 25th as the Clarity Act
failed in its Senate closure vote 49 to
50. And I think it's a little bit of a
knee-jerk reaction of the Black Rockck
clients, Fidelity clients. They're like,
"Well, we don't have we don't have
clarity, so I don't have clarity on
where Bitcoin's heading." And a little
bit of panic selling there, but that was
to be expected. Uh, hey, love the zero
short. Yeah, we we gave a short setup.
Every single show we give you trade
setups, including a live trade I'm in
today, but today maybe not the best idea
with the FOMC.
But let's jump into Bitcoin. Let's talk
about it here. So, let's uh zoom in
first and then we'll talk about the rate
hike. So this big purple line that
you're looking at on the bottom, this is
essentially the federal funds rate. What
is the FOMC meeting? I guess I can kind
of maybe explain that a little bit. This
is just the overnight interest that
banks charge or pay to each other when
they lend money. And this kind of
dictates what we see with the 2-year
yield. Uh doesn't really affect the
10-year, doesn't really affect the
30-year, but it definitely has effects
on the shorter end of the loans. And so
you see it on the 2-year, but this is
essentially the overnight federal funds
rate. So let's get back into the Bitcoin
chart. So what are we seeing in the
short term? We go to the 4our chart
here. Uh right now we're still kind of
trapped within this parallel channel
within this larger parallel channel.
This is the daily chart that we're
looking at. And you can see nice
parallel structure kind of established,
you know, really we established the
bottom here and the top here. But if you
draw it out further, you also notice,
all right, well, we got a little bit of
action here in December of last year.
You can see we kind of hit the top. And
then if you continue to draw this line
out, we found support right here on the
bottom. Continue to draw out the
parallel channel. We found resistance
here at the top. And then you see a
smaller parallel channel within that
larger parallel channel. Let's go into
the 4our. You can see we briefly broke
out above, but what I notic is well end
up being the top was resistance. So kind
of giving me even more credence for this
parallel structure. The fact that that
wick came and kissed it within, you
know, just a few bucks there also gives
a little bit of validity. Then we also
hit it here. Basically bounced from it
right there. So watch out for these
levels on the short term. I'm looking at
this midway point for potential
resistance. I'm looking at the bottoms
here for some potential support. But
it's not going to be okay. Well, we
raise rates so Bitcoin's going to do
this or they don't raise rates. highly
unlikely Bitcoin's going to do that.
It's really going to be all eyes on
Kevin Worsh's forward statements, the
Federal Reserve chairman. So, he's, you
know, they're going to use different
adjectives or different, you know,
adverbs for, you know, what they're
going to do into the future like, well,
it's uh greatly tightening or somewhat
tightening or not really tightening, you
know, and then they'll be like, oh, oh,
you know, oh well, did you hear that? He
said it's greatly or he didn't say it's
greatly. And so that's where you're
really going to see a lot of volatility,
folks. And also, uh, make sure you hit
the, uh, big shout out to Bitbase, by
the way. That's where we're getting
those trades in. And we'll talk about
yesterday's short as well. The
yesterday's short played out
beautifully. Look at that. We gave you
this level. We gave you this setup. I'm
not afraid to admit I forgot to take off
my order at 99 and some change. I rolled
into the office. I was in a short that
was in profit. So, hey, you know, happy
about that one. Let's uh jump back into
the time machine here. Let's talk about
what this all means. And so what are the
rate hike effects near the end of the
four-year cycle? I don't think it's
enough to just talk about, well, this is
what happened last time, you know, uh
Bitcoin saw, you know, uh a raised hike
or raised rates for the federal fund
rate. So, Bitcoin did this. We need to
isolate this data to the end of the
four-year cycle. Right now, we're pretty
much at the, you know, timewise at the
end of a four-year cycle. If we go from
the top, October 6, believe it's roughly
about 345 days. Yeah, 346
days. So, we need to look at the rate
hike effects when we're also within that
realm. Plus, we need to look at the
first rate hike because this is going to
be the first rate hike since the year
2023. So, uh, first one you've seen
since then, July of 2023. Let's zoom in,
folks. Let's zoom in. It's a little
boozy song, right? Zoom. Zoom. All
right. So, this is the first rate hike.
Let me stretch it a little bit. Our
first rate hike was here March of 22.
And that essentially to me that was a
little bit of a deadcat bounce. We go
straight up from right there. You see,
wow, nice move for Bitcoin. This was
kind of telegraphed with the RSI here.
You can see, you know, price wicking
lower, candle bodies, you know, largely
the same, but the RSI was much higher.
So, we have a lower wick, but a higher
RSI. This is basically a little bit of a
bearish divergence or in spirit of
bearish or bullish divergence, sorry.
And so, really, the pump was kind of
telegraphed. Also, we had fallen so far
so many days in a row, you know, a
little bit of a pump there, a little bit
of a pump there. Every single pump was
just getting dumped on. And so, we were
due a nice little rally. So yeah, we did
get a nice rally after the last time we
had our first raise after a pause. Now
that daily candle pump, we had a little
bit of a flat day, then Bitcoin started
to move up. But to me, the more
important data is where are we when
we're close to 345
days. So we move that out. So bam, about
right here. So, we're going to look at
this time period because again, I think
it's the context of the four-year cycle
greatly matters. And so, we're just
going to look at two before and two
after because it's kind of right here in
this realm. So, if we go two before, all
right, you know, markets were pumping in
anticipation,
but then look at that. We had a 7day
decline after we had the Fed rate the
heights or uh raise the rates there. And
so seven-day decline, we basically were
dumping. And then a week later, a little
bit more than a week, you know, maybe
closer to 10 days, then we had a massive
dump. All right. Well, let's go to the
next one. Go to the next one. That's
going to be this one right here. So,
this is the one right before where we're
at within about 345 days after the
all-time high. Well, 3-day, it was
pretty flat, you know, 3-day fall
rather, and then, you know, just flat
flat flat. Then we had a large sell-off
right as we had the next federal fund
raise hike there. And so we go up. Nice
little pump. Nice little pump. Huge
sell-off. Let's go ahead and measure
this. So this is just kind of looking at
what happened last time the Feds raise
rates. Was a 27% draw down in 4day
period. And if we look at the one that's
two after we would fall for the next
five days. So, we had a nice little wick
before and then a huge uh crash over
the, you know, a little bit less than a
week. So, that's kind of what we're
looking at for the Bitcoin landscape.
Now, I know this isn't any kind of exact
replica of what we're going to do, but
hey, just your little tip of the day.
Let history guide your forward guidance
there because at the end of the day,
what else do we have but backwards data?
We can't predict the future, but we can
look in the past. It kind of helps
dictate what we are going to see in the
future. All right, let's talk about some
altcoins as well. We'll talk about some
setups here. Uh the zero short. Yeah,
like we said, that one ended up doing
pretty decent. Not going to complain
about the zero short there. Uh wow, look
at this 15-minute. Yeah, we are starting
to dump. We are starting to see a little
bit of a dump there. Maybe if you want
to try to scalp that right before the
wick here. I was looking at the
liquidation heat map. We do have some
levels right around there. Maybe
something worth looking into. Let's look
at ETH. This is what I'm looking at on
the ETH chart.
I think this is going to be uh with the
FOMC one hour away. A lot of volatility
is coming our way with crypto. And so
what you need to do if you want to try
to trade this is put in your they call
them stink bids. Okay? I don't know.
They just call them stink bids. That's
just what they're called. Let me just uh
sidetrack here for a second. Do you
remember stink bombs? Those little glass
capsules full of the sulfur uh liquid.
People used to throw those back in my
middle school, back in my high school.
And there was weirdos in ice cream
trucks that would sell them to children.
I digress. I don't know what made me
think about that, but uh the stink bids,
of course. But yeah, I'm looking at
this. I would do a stink bid
near this area if you want to be a
little bit more conservative maybe and a
little bit below this area. That might
be a good place to open along or, you
know, if you're just looking for a swing
short, get some exposure down below that
level to the upside. We start pumping.
It's it's it's the God candles, you
know, candles that look like this candle
right here. This is a 4hour candle that
we're looking at. Uh or, you know, the
inverse of this candle. I wouldn't be
interested in shorting until we hit this
declining trend line on Ethereum. This
is from September 11th. This is what we
saw on the 14th. And then we have this
right here. This is the CPI print uh
wick, I believe, if it wasn't this one
right there. So, uh actually, this was
the CPI print there. believe that was a
uh unemployment data one. So you can see
right here the Fed data, the jobs data,
uh FOMC,
CME, CPI, all these things. If it sounds
like I'm talking, you know, a foreign
language, you know, go to verified
investing.com. We got a lot of great
articles on this stuff. It has really
been driving a lot of volume and
volatility here with the crypto markets.
Let's look at Salana. What's the stink
bids for Salana?
Well, we have this declining trend line
from this wick right here. This is all
the way back to September 4th. We hit it
right here on September 11th. That kind
of gives us our range. And wow, look at
that. We are losing this as we speak.
Oh, wow. This is This might be a long
opportunity, folks. Uh should I do it?
Let me know in the comments. Should I
just full port a 20x on Salana? It's
very risky. I would have to short I
would have to close that before the
FOMC. But this one is a very interesting
trade setup here for Salana. Uh let me
let me know. Let me know what you want
me to do here. I might do it. I'm not
against going live with the trade here,
folks. I am not against it at all. Oh,
let me show you the top end, though. We
also have this right here. I I love this
trend line right here. So, let me get it
as clean as possible. This because we're
using the 1 hour. Let's cut back to the
4 hour here. Give me a second. There we
go. So, this is a nice little trend line
as well. You continue to draw it out.
Continue to draw it out. And you can see
we do have some decent resistance above
us. But right now, God, I want to long
this, folks. I'm think, oh my god, I may
have missed my entry. I may have miss We
may have actually called the bottom
right there. May have called the bottom
on Salana. Go ahead. If you do want to
trade, big again, big shout out to
Bitbase. I'm thinking about it, folks.
I'm thinking about it. Let's do Should
we do like a $2,000 position? Oh, man.
I'm I'm thinking about it. May maybe we
just do like 10,000. Oh god. I don't
know. I don't know. I need to do a
little tea. I need a liquid liquidation
map. I'm live right now. You guys are
making me want to just go uh full port
full port on this. All right, let's look
at XRP. What are the stink bid levels
for XRP? Well, we have a parallel
channel that I'm watching here. So, if
we go from the tops to the bottoms, all
right, continue to extend this out.
Well, what do you know? It intersects
there on the bottom, intersects there on
the top, intersects again, and you can
see it kind of shot above if especially,
you could really see it if you zoom in
on the 1 hour. Then it kind of found
resistance against it. It's actually
started beating against it on the 1
hour. You see it fell against it, fell
against it here again, and now uh kind
of trapped between the two levels. Do it
all in. Let's just throw tens of
thousands of dollars on it if we get
liquidated. Oh well. Oh well. All right.
XLM. We can look at XLM from XRP. That's
a good segue between the two. So from uh
XLM from XRP to Stellar. So from Ripple
to Stellar.
All right. I Oh man, we have another
interesting another interesting one. So
it looks like we're we talk about
sweeping the leg. It's basically a
Johnny reference. Johnny uh sweep the
leg. Right now we're looks like we went
a little bit lower than this wick right
here. We already went a little bit
lower. I I would hesitate a little bit
on this one. I would go into the wick
from September 2nd. That to me would be
the safer entry if you're looking for a
long on XLM.
And right now, this one uh a lot of
volatility with XLM. Be very careful
trading this. Lower that leverage and
use tight stop losses. Everybody, I saw
your comments. You want me to look at
Athena. Athena, also the name of my dog.
It's spelled differently. It's a female
dog. You know what? My my wife named
her. Was it like the Roman god of war?
Maybe the Greek god of war. Uh Athena, I
believe. Let me know in the comments if
I'm wrong here. Um but this is what I'm
looking at on the Athena chart. We also
have a just a little wick action here.
So, think of the stink bids, folks.
Think of the stink bids. I would not be
interested in longing this until we came
up to this level down here. That might
be an interesting level uh for Athena
there. I I want to check back in on
Salana. Oh man, that that would have
been a nice scalp there. That was a nice
scalp. We literally called the bottom.
That would have been a nice move if we
would have done 20x. Let's just say we
didn't even catch that exact bottom. Uh
20x here. Hold on. Oops. I didn't mean
to hit that. Uh let's get the measuring
tool.
times 20 would have been a nice little
7% gain there real quickly. But anyways,
let's look at Cardano.
If if you guys jumped in on that trade,
congrats. Cardano, I'm looking at this
right here. Cardano didn't quite come
down to this level here, but you're
seeing other altcoins kind of sweeping
the levels that we saw, you know, the
tail end of August. And so, this is the
two levels for Cardano. And so if we get
a little bit of a push during the FOMC
volatility, might be a nice little long
opportunity for Cardono right in that
range. That's kind of what I'm looking
at there uh for that token there. But
yeah,
200x, why don't I just do 200x? Hey,
10,000x. No, Bitbase doesn't have
2,000x. Might be a little bit wild
there. And I Hype, I don't mind looking
at Hype. Hype actually had some pretty
big news today.
And so, who said what? Well, I'll tell
you who said what. Wayward. The
company's called Wayward. It's
essentially Kraken's parent company.
Kraken, a large crypto exchange. Big
shout out to Jesse, the CEO. He's he's
super based, by the way. But Kraken has
a lot of banking licenses. And so, they
just actually teamed up with Hyperlid to
introduce Hyperlquid. Let me just try to
simplify per technically, but it's like
hyperlquid trading pairs or exposure to
hyperlquid trades. They're opening that
up to US customers and they're making it
all legal. And so this is uh really
really good news for hyperlquid.
Oftentimes when you see in crypto, if
you get good news, price will
immediately do a little dump. If you get
bad news, the price will immediately do
a little bit of a pump. Why does it do
that? That is basically leverage getting
washed out. So token A XYZ fart dust,
you know, all of a sudden gets some good
news. Everybody's like, "Oh, I'm going
to long it. I'm going to long it." And
so what happens is it has to go and
liquidate those traders. And that's why
we pay attention to the liquidation
heatmap. We don't have this in
traditional stocks, but we do have it in
crypto. But we're going a little bit
long here. Let's just look at Hyperlid
real quick. Hyperlid, uh, you know,
still just kind of chopping around. This
one I I was looking at on the 4hour
chart here and we have a nice little a
little bit of a a sloppy parallel.
Sounds like a dance move. It did the
sloppy parallel. Uh so yeah, kind of I'm
kind of watching this right here. So
this one not really looking too good on
any kind of trade setup, but that's what
I'm looking at on Hyperlid. I do
appreciate all the comments. I
appreciate all the support here. Uh
thank you guys for sticking around to
the end as always. ADA is trash. Look,
don't hate it, but don't date it. Just
trade it, folks. All right, that's a
little bit of advice when it comes to
crypto because when you introduce
emotions, that's when you refuse to
sell. Or if you hate something so much,
that's when you refuse to, you know,
open a long or, you know, bid on it when
it's really beaten down. And so, hey
folks, this just a little bit of some
advice there for you folks. But stay
tuned for the FOMC.
That's going to be huge. We're going to
talk about the fallout tomorrow. And
guess what, folks? We're going to have
another show on Friday. So, hit that
like button on the way out. Make sure
you subscribe to the channel. So, I'm
saying that joke was sloppy. All right,
you guys got jokes. You guys got jokes.
Well, if you're laughing at my expense,
smash that like button on the way out. I
appreciate you sticking around to the
end. As always, I'll see you next time
in the future.