Recently, the market has been highly volatile, but the core issue I focus on is actually one—whether Powell will step down early. The original plan was for him to leave office in mid-year, at which point he would still chair three FOMC meetings. If this schedule is disrupted, the pace of liquidity injection might accelerate, which could have long-term impacts on the market.

That said, looking at the current actual data, it's clear that the market is far less aggressive than imagined. BTC has experienced significant fluctuations recently, but ETF net flows remain outflows. The total market cap of stablecoins has hardly changed, and the US dollar index is actually trending upward. These details indicate that genuine capital has not yet entered on a large scale.

Interestingly, despite two consecutive rate cuts, this liquidity has not flowed into the real business world. The intermediary layer is blocked, money can't be transmitted outward, and the government is still issuing bonds to drain liquidity. Under this contradictory situation, the current correction is more noise than a trend reversal.

From the data I monitor, the only real change is in the sentiment index—jumping directly from a 7-day average of 22 to 31. Other indicators have remained unchanged or slightly worsened. This suggests that market volatility is more about emotional release rather than a fundamental reversal.

Many analyses interpret this event as reinforcing BTC's story of anti-inflation and hedging fiat currency risk. But from another perspective, if the goal is to hedge against the risk of issuing tokens, gold next door actually has a stronger logic.

So I will stick to the original plan—focus on gold's performance in the first half of the year, and wait for clear signals of BTC taking off before following up.