If we check out Bitcoin's past cycles, it seems like bull runs typically hit their peak about a year to a year and a half after a halving, then we get a bear market that lasts roughly a year. The last halving happened in April 2024, and while this bull run has been pretty solid, if we go by what we've seen in the past, we might be looking at a bear market kicking in anytime between now and early 2026.
So, are we really on the brink of a big drop for BTC, or could this time around be different?
Some people thinks that the bear market period is over, while some people think that it will come but bitcoin will be less volatile. Some people still think that bitcoin has been less volatile in each halving but the bear market will come.
I prefer to be on the later sides and I think 2026 may be for the bears but in a way bitcoin will not really fall. More institutions are coming in, so this may let us not really know what will happen, but we can wait till then and see what will happen.
This pull back has nothing to do with bear market, this doesn't looks like a sign of bear market. Maybe you should look at this monthly performance of Bitcoin.
Every ember month, Bitcoin had a bad monthly historical performance, it usually start from September, October, November and December then a reverse pump on January and sometimes it doesn't. You can see from the chart that September isn't always good for Bitcoin, October is fair but November and December aren't good either.
What I observed from September this year was that market makers were trying so hard to avoid this poor performance but it seems this is already built character on the market to see this dump happening.
The only signal that can lead us to bear market is only if Bitcoin start trading below 200d moving average because it's one of the most respected support in the history of Bitcoin support. From the image below, you can see we are ahead of 200d moving average.
Until then, but for now, it's nothing serious.
Even if it comes, what would you do with it, or would you stop getting more BTC?
Surely, Bear will come this way or another (as an analysis suggests from Cookdata, we are not yet here), but we are going to be okay in the long run.
This pullback might be a result of traders' liquidation of their assets. I have read several publications that the bull run is over but I don't believe it. Historically, September is not usually a green month in the crypto space. From my observation, this price drop is temporary, the bull run will last until early next year. But we all know that nothing is certain so so your research and plan.
People will always have different ways of judging whether a market is bearish or bullish. However, in reality, the level of preparedness is often overlooked.
Data available from various sources, including current market conditions, should be supporting factors that can help someone analyze whether the future will be bearish or bullish.
Man, no matter how hard it is to believe in Bitcoin's positive future, the primary focus will not be on the price, but on how much Bitcoin one will own.
That's the big question, in my opinion. Patterns are models we create to project regularities into the future, and it often happens that those regularities change, which means we have to change the established patterns and projections based on them.
I doubt that, as things stand, even if the price does not rise much between now and the end of the year, 2026 will see a sharp decline, simply because of supply and demand. Perhaps what will happen is that the rise will be less sudden and more sustained over time thereby being the falls less steep as well.
We do not know how significant the decline will be in the upcoming changes in market trends. A decline is certainly going to happen, but I doubt it will be as large as it has been after the previous bull run.
The current market situation is different from a few years ago, even if a declining market trend occurs, I think the process will not happen in a short time. This does not mean breaking previous patterns, but I think there are changes.
In 2017, we've peaked at December, in 2021, we've reach our final all time high at October. So in this latest cycle, we are about around that same time already. But there is one difference, we have seen a new pattern wherein there was a new all time high before the halving itself. So it divert from the last two cycle. So it's really hard to see where we are right now, are we in the bear market? Or this is just like we are in a super cycle wherein we can still go and reach another all time high and that this is just a correction that we are seeing and then in the next three months, there could be another surge in price. So very hard to answer your question mate. Even if we look at some technical analysis, it could be invalidated in a snap.
Several news reports on X now say that many traders have been liquidated.
There has been a lot of talk about this publication, saying that they will enter a bearish market after bitcoin experiences a slight correction --- but this isn't a sharp decline, right? For me, there is still hope in the next few months, so my perception is that a bearish market will not come at this time.
This is just my view on market movements.
I know what the OP is talking about, the next phase in the Bitcoin cycle where we enter
a bear market between 12 and 18 months post halving, which is around now. This
has been something I have been mindful of for a few weeks now but...
I think its more difficult to predict now than after any previous halvings because a
lot has changed since the previous one.
These topics may have something to do with what happens soon -
Spot ETF's and institutional investors
Michael Saylors increasing influence
Changing geopolitical landscape and the Trump factor
I'm one of those guy who believe the pattern will be broken since there are too many variables already and I doubt something as disastrous as FTX collapse could repeat with the regulation in place.
You know it needs massive disaster to trigger such devastating bearish sentiment and right now maybe the only thing possible is through some stablecoin with billion dollars FDV depegging however since new bill about stablecoin passed in the USA
that requires audit, I doubt there'd be massive depegging as long as reserve can hold the peg.
That's why i'm very doubtful whether bearish market gonna come and follow cyclical pattern like as you described or just straight go up again.
I don't know when bear season will come but I know one thing for sure, even if this cycle breaks the previous old pattern of the market. Bear season will also come at other times. Because no financial market can go up in a straight line or have only bull seasons without bear seasons. Bear season is inevitable, it's just a matter of time. So always be prepared for that, don't rest on your laurels or get too complacent that bitcoin price will always go up.
If history repeats itself then it means we top sometime in Oct-Dec like in the previous 3 cycles. From what I recall we topped in Nov 2013, then Dec 2017, then Dec 2021 if my memory serves me right. And we had a bear market bottom exactly a year later, followed by an uptrend. Bitcoins price is still pretty high and we can break ATH one more time before topping.
With the amount of chaos going on in the world I wouldn't be surprised. And I honestly think we got an AI bubble going on in the stock market. What is happening to ORCL and NVDA stock and even TSLA just doesnt make sense. Same with the SP500 EPS. Everything is overpriced and over extended. However who knows, maybe this time it will be different.
I agree with you that for a bear market to happen, there has to be a big enough disaster to trigger it. But it seems like you are focusing too much on the market and forgetting that market movements depend not only on micro factors but also on macro factors from economics and politics.
Remember the Covid pandemic or the Russia-Ukraine war? They even cause damage that is more serious than collapses like FTX or Luna.
Recently, the Fed cut interest rates, but that's because the economy is at risk of falling into recession, not because it's getting better. Therefore, if a recession occurs, its entirely possible that we could face an unprecedented bear market.
Well, the bull run has been inline with the 4-year cycle pattern and so, it's likely that we'll see the bear market by 2026. It's too early to say about if predictions are telling that it will happen by this year end. Not yet IMHO and 2026 is giving that stronger sense that everyone needs to stock up their stable coins if they want to take advantage once the bear market is in. However, I think that we're all open to the idea if the cycle breaks this time.
It is unpredictable what will happen to Bitcoin. We can just guess, wait and see and act based on the current situation. If the bear comes, we can wait and prepare our funds to continue accumulating Bitcoin for some years or some terms. We don't have to panic if the bear comes because we may not think clearly about what we will do. But personally, I think Bitcoin can increase after the price seems difficult to rise especially in the next month. However, I have already prepared for many things especially if the situation becomes worse. I don't want to panic and lose the opportunity to buy or sell Bitcoin or altcoins.
BTC price will increase in the near future hopefully, so it's good you keep holding your BTC you can still be buying more to stack it up more when ever you have your discretionary income. You can sell more Altcoins to pay up some bills bills always keep going altcoins aren't what we should be holding it can go to zero anytime.
How about selling all your altcoins and buy BTC since it is a store of value.
We cannot avoid the upcoming bear market. But we do not know when it will start. Right now we are going down, but not quickly. Everything is happening gradually. Because we also see how Bitcoin's growth this year is occurring gradually, I think the onset of the bear market may not come with a sudden change in market trends in a short time. But I hope there will be a price spike once again that creates a new ATH before the market trend changes.