Hard Money Dispatch: Week of Feb. 16, 2026

Recently, someone accused me of being perma-bullish on bitcoin because I write this newsletter, and that I’m simply trying to “keep the retail bid warm,” or encourage people to buy bitcoin at all times.

In a way, I’m guilty as charged. However, Back on December 13th, I did warn readers that because bitcoin had fallen beneath its 50-week moving average (MA), the odds of an ensuing bear market were high. If you just subscribed recently (thanks!), you can find that edition here: https://brian-nibleys-newsletter.beehiiv.com/p/hard-money-dispatch-week-of-december-8-2025

I try to keep my boundless optimism tempered with reasonable analysis. When someone claims my content is only self-serving, they don’t know what they’re talking about.

The timing pattern of past bear markets may not repeat this cycle. In the past (2014 onward), BTC always printed 3 green yearly candles followed by a red one, whereas this time there were only 2 green candles before a red.

The early year candles are hard to see here because price was so minimal, but it goes like this:

2015 - 2017 = green years. 2018 = red year.

2019 - 2021 = green years. 2022 = red year.

2023 and 2024 = green years. 2025 = red year.

Here’s a great chart showing what BTC bear markets have been like in the past in terms of their duration:

In addition to the yearly candle close anomaly, the ISM didn't peak alongside bitcoin this time, and a vast expansion in global liquidity hasn't boosted price like it always has in the past.

the ISM refers to the ISM Manufacturing Index, which tracks new orders, production, supplier deliveries, and inventories—acting as a leading indicator of freight demand and overall shipping activity in the economy. It’s one of the most important macroeconomic indicators out there.

Note that the ISM has seen a large uptick recently, even as bitcoin entered a bear market.

Global M2 liquidity (the amount of new currency being injected into the system) has also skyrocketed recently. In the past, bitcoin always responded positively to this. But this time was different for some reason.

As you can see, there’s a very strong correlation between M2 and BTC priced in dollars. This has been the case forever, and it makes perfect sense for an asset with a fixed supply. The greater the supply of fiat currency, the higher the bitcoin price goes, as the value of fiat declines due to more of it being created.

But at some point in mid/late 2025, this correlation broke down. Global M2 has continued rising sharply, but bitcoin has not. If the correlation had held as it did in the past, 1 BTC would be equivalent to over $200,000 right now.

Many interpret this to mean bitcoin is dead. It could simply be that the cycle really is changing. The macro backdrop is incredibly bullish for bitcoin, and that’s never happened during a bear market before. I’m not 100% sure how to interpret this, and anyone who says they do is lying. On the one hand, it’s encouraging and could suggest that the bear market will be shorter and shallower than usual, or even that new all-time highs are coming in 2026. At the same time, it could be seen as worrisome, as all the signs point to bitcoin skyrocketing, yet the opposite has been happening.

The "this time is different" mantra, for once, is actually true. Just how true it is, the next 6 - 12 months will tell us.

One last thing on the subject: while the past may not be repeating this time, there’s one trend that would align with the current macro backdrop. Five or six negative months in a row for bitcoin has historically preceded the largest bull runs:

While it’s a bit of a paradox to look at a past pattern in the context of patterns changing, this one points out the possibility of a shift in timing while the typical trends remain in place. Perhaps things aren’t so different, and only timeframes have changed.

Bottom line: while a bear market is still the base case, there are compelling reasons to believe that something entirely different could be brewing, whether that be an early end to the bear market, a shallower decline overall, or even explosive rallies coming soon.

What can you do to protect yourself in a bear market? Two useful tools can be:

1) Setting stop losses, and/or

2) Hedging with a short position.

If there’s a certain portion of an asset you can’t live with losing, set a stop loss at a price you can’t bear to see it go below, so a sale will be triggered when the price falls.

Or, you can short in a low-risk manner by using an inverse ETF like BITI (a short bitcoin ETF). The security trades like a normal stock and seeks to mirror the inverse performance of bitcoin, i.e., when bitcoin goes down, BITI goes up.

Back to the beginning, where I noted some uninformed opinions on my motivations for writing this.

I don’t take any of this lightly, and while it’s important to acknowledge personal biases, the number one most important rule of trading/investing is to not let your emotions get involved. That’s a lesson I learned from a book called Trading in The Zone by Mark Douglas. It’s an enlightening book on trading psychology.

But books can only teach so much. Despite knowing the psychological effects of fear and greed, I’ve still traded on them and learned lessons the hard way.

In late 2023, I made $4,000 trading options on the major indexes like QQQ and SPY. The very next month, I gave back all of those gains because I felt invincible and thought everything would just work out, emboldened by the biggest short-term gains I had ever seen. Although I didn’t realize that’s what I was doing at the time. At least it reduced my capital gains tax burden!

And eventually, it led to the most important realization that short-term trading isn’t for me. It’s too high pressure and emotional, and we all have our limits when it comes to these things. So in 2025, I decided to take a different approach: instead of looking at charts and trying to day trade (hours or days) or swing trade (weeks or months), I decided to take longer-term trades based on patterns and trends.

As a result, I managed to outperform the S&P by 14% for the first time (equities and options only - this doesn’t include bitcoin - I recommend everyone to avoid revealing anything about their bitcoin/crypto-related activities anywhere).

To be fair, this is just one year, and 2026 may or may not be a repeat. But to me, it’s a big achievement. And while this doesn’t include bitcoin, some of the trades were bitcoin-related, like call options on IBIT or BTC treasury company shares.

I believe understanding bitcoin, its properties, and how it works, leads to a greater understanding of the financial system at large and the role it plays in our lives whether we like it or not. The two are inextricably linked despite being separate, and knowing only about one or the other can be limiting.

The point is: I’m not just some desktop degenerate, basement dwelling, gambling enthusiast writing this because I want you to buy bitcoin. This is real life and my money is where my mouth is. Since 2013 (one-third of my entire life so far), I’ve been researching bitcoin, related tech, and markets, and learning from experience non-stop.

The biggest lesson I took from Trading in The Zone was this: when you have your own real money on the line, it shifts your psychology, and you act differently. It’s not that hard for the average person to identify winning trends and see where good opportunities might lie. But it becomes extremely difficult as soon as your own dollars are on the line, the risk becomes real, and everything relies on your accurate judgment and decisions. Markets can behave in any way at any time for any reason, and the only person who can help you take the correct action (usually by having a plan in place well in advance) is you.

The most important thing therefore becomes self-awareness: knowing yourself and your own emotional tendencies, not making the best predictions or conducting the best analysis.

The point of this newsletter is to pass on the knowledge I’ve gained along the way, make the journey of learning about bitcoin less confusing, and help people understand that while the fiat system may be rigged against us, there can still be ways to turn it in your favor and have a good life regardless.

The most burdensome part about all of this is often taxes. And with tax season upon us, this weeks’ Hard Money Dispatch guest is quite fitting.

There’s a strange emotional weight that comes with success — especially the kind that looks good on paper.

In this week’s episode of Hard Money Dispatch, I sat down with Nick Slettengren, founder of Count On Sheep, and what struck me most wasn’t the technical talk about crypto taxes — it was the human side of the journey. Nick had already built and exited a successful marketing business. From the outside, it looked like he’d “made it.” But as he shared, walking away from something you’ve built with your own hands carries a complexity most people don’t see. Identity shifts. Purpose gets questioned. And sometimes, you find yourself pulled toward something new — in his case, Bitcoin and digital assets.

Like so many of us, Nick was drawn in by the promise of crypto. The sovereignty. The upside. The sense that this was the frontier. But what often gets left out of the story is what happens after the trades, after the bull markets, after the excitement. Namely…

Taxes.

Nick learned firsthand how confusing and unforgiving crypto taxation can be. Missing cost basis. Fragmented wallets. Exchange shutdowns. Years of transactions with no clear reconciliation. And unfortunately, he’s seen how common these mistakes are — good people trying to operate in good faith, but without the systems in place to report accurately.

What I appreciated about our conversation is that it wasn’t fear-based. It was grounded. The message wasn’t “be afraid of the IRS.” It was this: if we believe in sovereignty, we also need to take responsibility. Clean books. Accurate reporting. Intentional tax optimization. Freedom doesn’t mean chaos — it means ownership.

That conviction is what led Nick to start Count On Sheep — a company built to bring clarity to the digital asset space. Not hype. Not shortcuts. Just careful reconciliation, thoughtful strategy, and real audit protection for people who want to do this the right way.

If you’re sitting on years of transactions you haven’t fully reconciled, or you’ve been quietly hoping it’ll “sort itself out,” this episode is worth your time. And if you want professional help navigating digital asset reconciliation and tax filing — including audit protection — you can check out Count On Sheep here:
https://share.countonsheep.com/7fGPHS

We also mentioned CoinTracker as a practical tool to help organize your crypto tax information:
https://cointracker.sjv.io/POXQkQ

🎧 Listen to the full episode on the platform of your choice:

Fountain: https://fountain.fm/episode/u13s24vXrLcMbnSt7pKt

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC15oCBPnt4

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/from-exit-to-exodus-entrepreneurship-bitcoin-and-the/id1649814816?i=1000749505795

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1aiSJozIOA15JJfDzcTGYC

Don’t forget to leave a 5-star review!

Bitcoin the network is a monetary protocol backed by energy.

bitcoin (BTC) the currency is digital property, a commodity, crystallized energy in cyberspace, and a currency all at once.

The Bitcoin blockchain is the highway; BTC is the car that moves on the chain.

Differentiating the two is an important distinction that isn’t often talked about, and makes the whole thing easier to understand.

While this weeks’ edition has been almost exclusively focused on the investment side of things, that value only exists because of the protocol – the technological breakthrough that created digital scarcity and permissionless, unconfiscatable hard money for the first time in history.

Thanks for reading. If you made it this far, you may want to share the newsletter with someone else you think might be interested.

To your sovereignty and prosperity,

Disclaimer: Nothing in this newsletter shall be considered investment advice. Do your own research. I am not a financial advisor.