Bitcoin’s brief and extended dip to $72K on Tuesday, the 3rd of February, has now led more analysts and asset managers to accept that the bear market is here.
In fact, Matt Hougan, CIO of digital asset manager Bitwise, said the “crypto winter” began in January 2025, and that $75 billion in demand from ETF and treasury firms was the only thing keeping it going.
Otherwise, Bitcoin [BTC] price would have dropped 60%, Hougon noted, and added,
“We have been in a crypto winter since January 2025. Chances are, we’re closer to the end than the beginning. We are in a full-blown crypto winter.”
According to Hougan, the bear markets typically last 13 months. But he doubted that the current one would extend to next November.
What’s next for Bitcoin and the crypto market?
Although CryptoQuant’s Head of Research, Julio Moreno, agreed with Hougan’s analysis, he differed with his timestamps.
According to Moreno, the bear market phase began in November 2025 and could possibly end later in 2026.
“The Bitcoin bear market started in November 2025, as suggested by on-chain and market data, and the timing has implications for when it will end. My current expectation is Q3 2026.”
For the unfamiliar, BTC dropped below $100K and the bull market support of the 50-week Exponential Moving Average (EMA) in November.
In fact, from a price charts perspective, Moreno’s statement aligned with AMBCrypto analysis.
Assessing the potential crypto market bottom
With a projection for a potential reversal by mid to late 2026, how low can the BTC correction go?
In the past cycle, the bear market bottomed out at the peak of the 2017 cycle.
If a similar trend plays out, that would be around $70K, which is the 2021 market top.
In fact, this was the same level marked out by Aurelie Barthere, Principal Research Analyst at crypto analytics firm Nansen. In an email statement, Barthere told AMBCrypto,
“The price trend in crypto is negative, and capitulation has just started in ETFs. I would expect the bearish move to lead BTC to test $70k support.”
When asked what could help reverse the bearish trend, Barthere said a “potential adoption of the CLARITY Act by Congress could help stabilize prices.”
However, on-chain data showed the MVRV Z-Score was sloping downwards and headed toward the fair-value zone that marked the past market cycle bottoms.
Put differently, at press time value, we may still be far from a true market bottom, based on this metric. Meanwhile, Fundstrat’s Tom Lee said that ‘all pieces’ were in place for the market to rebound.
Final Thoughts
- Bitwise CIO stated that the sector was in a ‘full-blown’ crypto winter, but it could end soon.
- For CryptoQuant, however, the winter will end in Q3 2026, while Nansen eyed $70k as potential support.
