Bitcoin's Bear Markets Are Down Bad — In a Good Way 📉➡️📈

Bitcoin may have entered a new bull market even after last week's sell-off and wave of liquidations, according to research from BloFin that points to its recovery above the 50-week moving average as the strongest technical signal. The research house argues that Bitcoin's traditional four-year boom-and-bust cycle is gradually losing strength, with future rallies delivering smaller gains and downturns proving shorter and less severe than in prior cycles.

The most cited evidence is Bitcoin's move back above its 50-week moving average near $78,800 in September, followed by a push above $86,000 in early October. BloFin notes that this indicator marked bull-market transitions in 2015, 2019 and 2023. $BTC's MVRV ratio, which compares current market value with the average price investors paid, reinforced the signal by climbing above its 365-day average. As of October 11, the ratio stood near 1.54 versus a one-year average of 1.44, indicating that longer-term market strength remains intact despite recent selling pressure.

BloFin's central finding concerns the declining severity of Bitcoin's drawdowns. $BTC fell approximately 53% from its October 2025 peak of $124,824 to $58,525 in June 2026, a markedly smaller decline than the 84.5% drop in the 2013–2015 bear market, the 83.8% fall in 2017–2018, and the 76.7% slide in 2021–2022. Bull-market returns have also narrowed, with trough-to-peak gains shrinking from roughly 530 times in Bitcoin's earliest cycle to eight times in the most recent one. If June 2026 marks the bottom, the latest bear market lasted roughly eight months versus the historical 12–13 months.

The research attributes much of the cycle's softening to concentrated long-term ownership. In September, approximately 16.64 million BTC, or 83% of circulating supply, had remained unmoved for at least 155 days. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs held around 1.3 million BTC as of October 2, while public companies owned another 1.29 million BTC, putting ETFs and corporate treasuries in control of roughly 13% of circulating supply. Last week's $679 million outflow from those ETFs showed that institutional demand can still weaken sharply during market stress.

Bitcoin was trading around $83,000 on October 11, still above the September moving-average breakout level and well above its June low. BloFin also observed that $BTC peaked roughly 18 months after the April 2024 halving, a pattern consistent with prior cycles. According to the research, a sustained move below the current 50-week moving average would weaken the bullish case.