Until now my base map was simple: the top of the crypto cycle arrives in summer. July. Together with the SpaceX IPO, one last ignition of risk appetite, a big name, big noise and a neatly packaged story about a new stage for capital markets.
That picture is still alive. But it needs a correction.
The direction stays the same. What changes is the place on the map. Earlier it looked as though July could be the finale of the whole cycle. Now the charts show a different option: July looks more like the first big top, but not yet the final blow-off.
Look at the current picture. SPX, Nasdaq and Russell are heading up. Russell is finally getting its rotation. Meanwhile BTC is dripping around 80k, XRP is wallowing below 1.50, under a level that is a year old. Equity is running, crypto is standing still.
In a late cycle phase that is a strange sight. Normally crypto is the more aggressive one, faster, more deranged. This time equity goes first. That means one simple thing: crypto still has a separate window of its own.
But here a serious question appears: how does that window open when the Fed no longer hands out the old easy excuse?
The macro backdrop is ugly. April CPI in the US rose to 3.8 % year on year, the highest in three years, and the energy index was up 17.9 % over the year. Core CPI pushed higher to 2.8 %. Inflation is not falling the way the market would need it to. It is biting again.
The Iran war added another layer of pressure through oil and energy. Reuters reported that because of inflation and a strong labour market the big banks have started pushing their Fed cut forecasts further out: UBS expects cuts in December 2026 and March 2027, BofA already sees the Fed with no cuts for the rest of 2026, and Goldman moved its first cut to December 2026. This is not a Fed promise. This is a rewrite of market expectations.
The textbook would say: in this kind of environment risk assets should be vomiting, not rallying.
But the market rarely moves by the textbook. It moves by money.
Money does not arrive only through Fed cuts. It arrives through the fiscal channel. The Treasury projects a 900 billion dollar cash balance at the end of June, and according to the projections the TGA could reach roughly 1 trillion dollars, give or take 50 billion, at the end of July. That is money sitting in the Fed account, pulled out of the system. When the TGA comes down, it returns to the market through the fiscal channel.
The RRP is no longer the big shock absorber it used to be. That makes TGA moves more sensitive for reserves and for risk appetite. The same mechanism that previously let markets rise without a direct Fed cut can become important again.
Add the SpaceX IPO, which according to Reuters sources is aiming for a June roadshow, a raise of up to 75 billion dollars and a valuation of roughly 1.75 trillion dollars. That is not an ordinary listing. That is a potentially historic capital event, with a retail audience, FOMO and Musk’s name in one package.
Add the AI infrastructure spending, the data centres, the queue of new IPOs, the stablecoins, the tokenisation. All of these flows work alongside the Fed. They do not depend on one meeting or one phrase from one chairman.
The scenario is still alive, because liquidity can arrive through a door nobody is watching. Everyone is staring at the Fed. The money can come in through the side entrance.
This is where the question of XRP’s third wave begins.
The third wave is usually the one that forces the market to wake up. For a long time nothing happens. Everyone is tired. Half the market has already buried the coin, the other half holds on principle. Then the move comes. Fast. Aggressive. In a few weeks it does what people waited a year for.
XRP has an ugly habit. For a long time it looks like a dead horse, and then in one move it forces everyone to redraw their charts.
In 2017 it did not move in one straight shot. There was a big impulse, a correction, then the final madness up to 3.84 dollars on January 4, 2018. We saw the same character in 2024–2026: dragged both ways, patience squeezed, some declaring victory too early, others burying the cycle too early.
Now a similar scenario is back on the table.
Summer: the third wave and the equity cycle top
The base summer picture looks like this: BTC moves higher. The main window: 126–140 thousand. I leave 200k+ only as a blow-off option, if liquidity, IPO euphoria and crypto rotation stack up at the same time.
A BTC move like that would naturally lift the alts too. For XRP that could be a first serious strike into the 7–9 dollar zone. A big move. A lot of noise. But not the finale yet. More like the culmination of the third wave.
Here the SpaceX IPO becomes more than a market event. It is the symbol of the entire risk market.
Musk, space, Mars, AI, America’s military and technological edge, new infrastructure. Names like that work as a magnet at cycle tops. They attract not only professional money. They attract mass belief.
The media will talk about the largest technology listing in history. Retail will feel it has been handed a ticket to the future. Funds will show pretty slides. A feeling will appear that this is only the beginning.
That is the last puff before the first drop.
After that comes the A wave down.
The indices start slipping. Nasdaq cools off. SPX gets squeezed. Russell reminds everyone again that small companies are more sensitive to liquidity. Crypto takes it on the head.
BTC comes back from the top into the 70–80k zone. XRP falls from 7–9 dollars to 4–5. Two months of vomiting. Everyone gets scared. Half the market starts talking about a bear market again.
Technically that would be a classic fourth wave. It shakes people out. It takes away confidence. After the third wave everyone feels like a genius. After the fourth, half of them want to sell and forget the whole story.
Autumn: the B wave bounce and the crypto finale
This is where the most dangerous part begins.
Equity markets start the B wave bounce. The narrative is already prepared: OpenAI, Anthropic, new AI IPOs, data centres, agents, payments, stablecoins, tokenisation, the whole financial infrastructure with new names and old promises.
For equities that would be a bounce after the first blow. Pretty enough for many to believe again. Strong enough for the bears to be laughed at again. Dangerous enough for people to start saying that the summer correction was just a healthy cooling off.
Crypto meanwhile can be doing a different job.
If BTC finishes its first big move in the summer, and the fourth wave cleans out the market, autumn could bring the final fifth. But that one is no longer led by BTC. This move belongs to the alts. In that scenario XRP has the best conditions to become the main character.
Regulatory clarity is there. ETF structures are there. The banking infrastructure story is there. Stablecoins, cross-border payments, tokenised assets. The whole narrative package is ready.
Then the 27 dollar XRP level starts living a life of its own.
Today it looks like outer space. But on the chart that number is not pulled out of thin air. Take the January 2018 top: 3.84. Take the March 2020 COVID bottom: 0.115. That is the main cycle swing from which the Fibonacci extensions are drawn.
The standard 1.618 extension of that swing, applied from the current base level, leads into the 25–28 zone. The 2.618 extension of a shorter swing shows the same corridor. Two separate methods give a similar place.
This is not a fundamental value. This is not a calm investment target. This is a bubble top number.
Bubbles live by simple mechanics: capital moves out of what is already expensive into what still looks not fully lifted.
First it was the semiconductors. Taken. Then gold. Taken. Then silver. Taken. Then oil, which the war shoved right under everyone’s nose. Then the indices again through the rotation into Russell. Every stage takes away one more “cheap” corner.
When almost no such corners are left, capital moves into the last category. The one where the promise is bigger than the history, and the price can briefly tear itself away from the mathematics.
Crypto fits that perfectly.
XRP especially, once regulation, banks, infrastructure and the story of an AI financial system are piled into one heap. The market does not even need all of it to be fully working in the same week. It is enough that the story can be sold.
At tops the market buys the image.
What would break this map
I do not work with belief. I work with a scenario that has exit conditions.
First cut: BTC does not reach 120k by the end of July. If the main window is 126–140, and all the catalysts (SpaceX roadshow, TGA peak, equity euphoria) stack up by midsummer, then 120k by the end of July is the minimum condition. If BTC is still grinding between 75 and 100 by then, the scenario has to be thrown aside. The top was probably last year, and we are already sliding in the C wave.
Second cut: XRP does not break 3 dollars by the end of June. Without that level the third wave theory weakens. Consolidation below 2.50 would then look less like accumulation and more like preparation for a trip down.
Third cut: the SpaceX IPO is officially pushed into 2027. Without that catalyst the equity blow-off narrative loses its main figure. The AI IPO flow remains, but it does not carry the same psychological weight.
Fourth cut: after the summer correction BTC fails to get back above 100k in the autumn. Then there is no force left for a final alt season. The fifth wave does not form. The 27 dollar XRP scenario falls off the table.
The practical part
If the map works, the hardest part will not be catching the summer top.
The hardest part will be not getting scared during two months of correction and not losing patience before the autumn finale. Most people who lost money in previous cycles did not lose it because they missed the target. They lost money because they sold during the fourth wave and never came back for the fifth.
The fourth wave takes positions away from those who were right too early. The fifth wave takes positions away from those who changed their minds after the fourth.
My corrected map now looks like this.
By summer BTC makes one last larger move into the 126–140 thousand zone, with a possible blow-off above 200k only in an extreme case. SpaceX and equity euphoria help finish the third wave of the risk markets. XRP moves to 7–9 dollars.
After that comes the A wave down. Two months of cleaning. XRP returns to the 4–5 dollar zone. BTC falls to 75–85k.
In late autumn or early winter equities make the B wave bounce through the AI IPO story. At the same time crypto makes its final fifth wave. That is where the real blow-off lives.
After that the C wave collects the bill.
I no longer draw July as the final point for crypto. July looks to me more like the first serious top. Big, important, maybe very profitable, but not the last one.
This is where the market can pull its dirtiest trick: the people who catch the summer top and sell will most likely miss the autumn finale.
The fourth wave will convince them it is all over. Equities will fall. Crypto will fall. The media will scream “bear market.” And when XRP moves for its last shot in the autumn, most will already have sold, reprogrammed themselves, shifted into defence.
That will be the last game of the cycle.
Not who hits 7–9 dollars in the summer. Not who avoids the 4–5 dollar bottom. But who has the cold blood to come back when everybody else has already washed their hands.
After that the ball is over. The lights go out.
Those who are still convinced at that moment that a new stage is beginning will pay for the whole party.
Meška out.
Written in mid-May 2026. The numbers are alive as long as inflation, the TGA and the SpaceX timing are alive.
Sources
CPI and energy index figures (3.8 % / 17.9 % / 2.8 %): US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Consumer Price Index report, April 2026 data.
Fed cut forecasts pushed out (UBS, BofA, Goldman): Reuters, early May 2026, report on the major banks’ updated rate cut forecasts after the April CPI.
TGA projection (900 billion / ~1 trillion dollars): US Treasury quarterly refunding statement, February 2026; speech by NY Fed’s Roberto Perli, March 2026.
SpaceX IPO parameters (June roadshow / 75 billion / 1.75 trillion valuation): Reuters sources, May 2026 reports on the planned listing.
XRP historical levels (3.84 USD on 2018-01-04 / 0.115 USD on 2020-03-13): CoinMarketCap, Coinbase, CoinLore historical data.
BTC price context (~80k, ATH 126,198 USD on 2025-10-06): Yahoo Finance, Fortune daily market summaries, May 2026.