Bitcoin’s recovery over the past few weeks has led to shallower losses than any previous bear market on record, leading analysts to believe that the cycle may have permanently changed—though not all are convinced the old playbook is dead.
Ryan Yoon, senior research analyst at Tiger Research, told Decrypt the institutional shift has introduced a structural support that didn't exist in previous cycles. “Strong institutional capital from ETFs and Strategy has created a 'price floor,' which is why Bitcoin is moving differently from the past,” he said.
“This decoupling trend will not only persist, but also define a new normal for crypto assets,” Ding told Decrypt. The current market volatility is “essentially position reshuffling ahead of a long-term bull run,” not a point of no return.
Is the Bitcoin bear market at its end?Not all analysts accept that the bear market is broken.
While Bitcoin has cleared key on-chain thresholds—trading above both its True Market Mean and Short-Term Holder cost basis—those same conditions preceded brief recoveries in 2014, 2018, and 2022 before the bear market resumed, according to Illia Otychenko, lead analyst at CEX.IO.
“Bitcoin hasn't reached a point of no return yet,” Otychenko told Decrypt.
Nearly 70% of short-term holder supply is now in profit—the highest since Bitcoin's October all-time high—a level that historically creates distribution pressure as holders face growing incentive to sell, he added.
With Bitcoin's one-year volatility near all-time lows, any major price move carries outsized weight, Otychenko said, adding that the U.S.-Iran conflict has made Bitcoin more sensitive to macro developments than it has been in years.
Looking aheadYoon outlined two paths from here. “We could see a great scenario where investors move their money into Bitcoin if the stock market stays flat,” he said. “On the other hand, if the AI bubble actually bursts and triggers a market crash, Bitcoin might drop to test lower prices again.”
