Bitcoin and Ethereum are beginning to earn back my trust.

From a trading standpoint, my setup is straightforward. I want price above the 8-day and 21-day exponential moving averages (EMA). I want momentum to improve. And I want buyers initiating at higher prices instead of merely responding whenever Bitcoin or Ethereum falls. 

That setup is beginning to return.

But the charts are only part of what is starting to interest me. The other part is where investors may look for their next burst of momentum if the AI infrastructure trade begins to cool off. 

For much of the past year, the AI trade has been a vacuum cleaner for growth capital.

Semiconductors, memory, optical networking, power equipment and the rest of the data-center complex have offered something crypto could not. They had accelerating revenue, visible shortages and earnings estimates moving higher. As long as those stocks kept delivering both growth and velocity, there was little reason for momentum investors to go searching for another trade.

But no trade moves straight up forever. At some point, even the best-performing stocks need to digest their gains. That can happen through a sideways price consolidation, valuation compression as earnings catch up with share prices, a moderate correction or an internal rotation from the most extended semiconductor names into other parts of the AI complex.

None of those outcomes requires the AI thesis to break. 

In fact, I remain convinced that the AI infrastructure buildout has years to run. But a great long-term theme can still become a tired near-term trade. And when the market's fastest horse stops running for a while, capital begins looking for something else with momentum and room to move.

Bitcoin and Ethereum are obvious candidates. 

Both are liquid enough for institutions, volatile enough to produce the velocity momentum traders want, and well below the levels that would signal broad speculative enthusiasm. More importantly, they increasingly sit on opposite sides of the AI economy. Bitcoin is the scarce monetary asset in a world where AI should make many other things more abundant. Ethereum is part of the financial infrastructure that could support tokenized assets, stablecoins, and transactions initiated by AI agents.

That does not mean money will mechanically flow out of NVIDIA or Micron and directly into Bitcoin. Every seller still needs a buyer. What changes is the marginal bid. If AI stocks stop rewarding good news while Bitcoin and Ethereum begin breaking resistance, portfolio managers, systematic funds, and momentum traders will notice. Performance attracts capital. Capital creates more performance. That is how a rotation can build on itself.

Ethereum currently has the cleaner chart. Price has moved above the 8-day and 21-day EMAs (light blue and red on the chart below), and the 8-day EMA has remained above the 21-day since early July. It is not something we need to bang the desk over, but I see it as short-term bullish.

More importantly, price and both exponential moving averages are above the now-flattening 50-day simple moving average (purple on the chart above). Price has also reclaimed $1,815, the area where selling was cut off in early and late February 2026.

As long as Ethereum remains above its short-term moving averages and the 50-day SMA, my trading bias is bullish. Continued rotation around $1,815 is probably the most likely near-term outcome, but I think price is headed toward the declining 200-day SMA (green on the chart above) near $2,180 over the next month or so.

I do not expect Ethereum to trade up to the 200-day SMA and simply blow through it. That would be too easy. While I am becoming more bullish on crypto in general, I suspect it will take some work for price to break above that level and sustain the move. Longer-term investors are probably better off waiting for Ethereum to hold above the 200-day SMA and begin moving higher before getting too aggressive.

But that 200-day moving average could become especially important if AI stocks are consolidating at the same time. A sustained breakout in Ethereum while the AI leaders move sideways would be our first meaningful sign that investors are not simply buying a crypto bounce. They may be rotating toward a new source of momentum.

Bitcoin's chart is similar, though not quite as clean.

Price is back above the 8-day and 21-day EMAs, along with the now-flattening 50-day SMA. But recapturing those moving averages is not what should concern the bears. It is the persistent responsive buying under $60,000 that should have sellers scrambling.

When Bitcoin broke through its February lows in early June, the bears had a clear shot at driving it well below $60,000. They tried repeatedly and failed. Selling continues to get cut off whenever Bitcoin trades under that level.

The monthly chart explains why. The area around $60,000 marked major tops in 2021 and sat near the center of Bitcoin's lengthy 2024 consolidation. For one reason or another, supply is being absorbed around that level.

The near-term line in the sand is $65,000. A sustained move above it should bring the declining 200-day SMA near $73,000 into play. We tested that moving average in May, and I suspect Bitcoin will test it again over the next month.

From there, I will be watching how Bitcoin behaves relative to the Nasdaq and the major AI infrastructure stocks. If Bitcoin can push through resistance while the AI infrastructure complex continues digesting its gains, the rotation thesis becomes more than an interesting story. It begins showing up in price.

This is not a new bull-market declaration.

Bitcoin and Ethereum still have declining 200-day moving averages overhead, and both have work to do before the longer-term trend becomes convincingly bullish. But for trading purposes, I am leaning long while they remain above their 8-day and 21-day EMAs and responsive buying continues to overwhelm initiative selling.

The buyers are finally giving us something to work with. If the AI trade gives investors a reason to look elsewhere, crypto may finally have the fuel to do something with it.

 Disclosure: Long IBIT, ETHA, BTC