Bitcoin is trading in a market that’s getting harder to define.
Hovering around $64,000 at the time of writing, Bitcoin is down by almost 50% from its cycle peak. That’s a much shallower draw down than previous cycles, but the bull run this time around did not reach the same heights.
The 2025 rally was driven by exchange-traded fund (ETF) inflows, post-halving momentum and renewed institutional demand, pushing the market to a new all-time high of more than $126,000 in October 2025.
Since then, the trend has been inexorably downward, but analysts are split on what that decline signifies.
According to Standard Chartered and other bullish institutional desks, Bitcoin may have already reached its cycle bottom last month, with structural demand from ETFs and treasury companies, and improving long-term capital flows reducing the likelihood of a deeper draw down.
Other analysts take a more cautious approach, seeing Bitcoin as likely in the final stages of its bear market but not at a confirmed bottom yet.
Bitcoin’s four-year cycles. Source: Galaxy
Galaxy Research, for example, argued in June that traditional cycle signals have not fully reset, meaning the risk of further pain cannot be ruled out.
Curiously, analysts are no longer just divided on price targets but on what a “cycle bottom” actually means in a market increasingly shaped by ETFs, macro liquidity, and shifting global capital flows.
Some analysts still see further downside ahead
At the most cautious end of the spectrum is Russell Thomson, chief investment officer at Hilbert Capital asset management firm.
Speaking to Cointelegraph, Thomson said he believes Bitcoin remains in a downcycle and is likely to break below recent lows before forming a durable base. He said that the current structure is still dominated by global macro conditions and liquidity rather than crypto-native signals.
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Thomson expects Bitcoin to first revisit the $56,000-$52,000 range, representing summer 2024 lows, before potentially extending losses further to between $40,000 and $45,000, an area he associates with prior consolidation phases in the early 2024 market structure.
Timing-wise, he sees Bitcoin’s broader cycle rhythm still broadly intact, with a potential low forming around October 2026, although he stressed that macro policy shifts could pull that forward.
“Fed rate cuts and/or [the CLARITY Act] passing could put the bottom in earlier than that,” he said.
He argued that institutional capital has not insulated Bitcoin from macro cycles, but rather deepened its sensitivity to global liquidity conditions, making it behave more like a “high-beta macro instrument” than a “detached crypto-native asset.”
That view is echoed by analysts at Citibank, who cut their 12-month price target for Bitcoin to $82,000 from $112,000 on July 1, highlighting how Bitcoin’s growing integration into traditional financial markets has strengthened its correlation with risk assets and macro liquidity conditions rather than reducing volatility.
Late-stage bear market, but not confirmed bottom yet
A more positive but still cautious view comes from André Dragosch, head of research (Europe) at Bitwise.
Dragosch told Cointelegraph that the current environment resembles a “late-stage bear market,” arguing that multiple indicators already suggest downside exhaustion.
He noted that sentiment has deteriorated to levels last seen after the collapse of FTX in 2022, a period typically associated with seller fatigue.
Dragosch also does not believe the cycle low has been confirmed. “I don’t think that we have seen the final bottom just yet, although we are probably very close,” he said, emphasizing that no single indicator can reliably identify a cycle bottom.
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He also highlighted the structural shift in the market, pointing to the rise of ETFs and institutional participation, which have increased off-chain trading and reduced the reliability of some historical cycle indicators.
Despite this uncertainty, he said downside risks appear increasingly limited at current levels, adding that Bitcoin could begin outperforming artificial intelligence equities over the coming months if macro conditions stabilize.
Bitcoin price and its cycle bottoms. Source: Galaxy
In Galaxy’s base-case scenario, the firm pointed to a potential slide to between $40,000 and $46,000, depending on how liquidity and macro conditions evolve.
‘When will Bitcoin bottom?’ could be the wrong question
A more structural interpretation comes from Dean Chen, an analyst at Bitunix Exchange.
Chen told Cointelegraph that Bitcoin is still in a decline, but one increasingly defined by global liquidity competition rather than internal crypto market structure.
“I believe Bitcoin remains in a down cycle, although it has entered a relatively stable valuation range supported by the structural capital base created after the approval of US spot Bitcoin ETFs in 2024,” Chen said.
While ETFs have created a more persistent institutional bid, Chen argued that Bitcoin is now competing directly with other major global capital narratives, particularly artificial intelligence and equity markets, for marginal liquidity.
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“The bigger challenge isn’t Bitcoin itself; it’s the competition for global liquidity,” he said. “Capital continues to flow toward AI infrastructure, equities, and other high-growth opportunities.”
In his view, this changes how cycle analysis should be understood altogether.
“The wrong question is ‘when will Bitcoin bottom?’” Chen said. “The more important question is: ‘when will crypto once again become the most attractive destination for global risk capital?’”
He noted that derivatives markets now play a significantly larger role in price discovery than in previous cycles, with funding rates and open interest increasingly driving short-term volatility.
That means Bitcoin may not form a sharp V-shaped bottom at all, he said, but instead spend an extended period building a structural base.
A Bitcoin cycle that no longer looks like previous cycles
Beyond price targets, what emerges from these competing views is a deeper disagreement over how Bitcoin’s cycle structure should even be defined.
Thompson sees Bitcoin as still firmly inside a macro-driven down cycle, where liquidity conditions have not yet fully turned.
Dragosch sees a late-stage bear market where exhaustion signals are already visible, even if confirmation is still pending.
Chen argues that Bitcoin is now competing directly with global capital allocation themes such as AI and equities, making traditional bottom-calling frameworks increasingly incomplete.
In this cycle, it seems, the debate is not just about where Bitcoin bottoms but whether a “bottom” is still a single moment at all.
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