Market makers and volatility are the only reason this market even “moves” most days. And without big, reputable exchanges, most people would still be watching crypto from the outside. But let’s not pretend the current setup is clean. A lot of price action is driven by market makers gaming the tape, building synthetic order books, and washing liquidity with fake flows that drain real participants. Whether it’s coordinated or just incentives lining up, the end result feels the same for retail: you get farmed. Everyone is trying to pin this drop on a story. “Trump will do something with Iran.” “They’re trying to break Saylor or Tom Lee.” “Epstein news.” “CZ is selling.” Maybe a specific catalyst shows up, sure. But the bigger issue is simpler: the “big money” that actually lifts markets is not stepping in. Active spot retail is basically gone. Market makers are quoting into a vacuum. If APIs went down for 5 minutes and MMs stopped posting bids, you’d see how thin the real buy side is. There’s barely any organic demand underneath. And the capital that can move the needle is busy elsewhere, commodities, metals, equities, other games with better margins right now. Until that rotation comes back, you and I buying dips won’t flip the screen green. The only real question is: in this low-volume vacuum, how far down do we go before it finally looks cheap enough for big money to say “ok, that’s the bottom.”