When Bitcoin’s Bear Market Might End

David Kanellis defines a Bitcoin bear market as the span from the previous bull-market all-time high to the eventual trough. Because the trough is only clear in hindsight and Bitcoin has a limited history, he excludes downturns before 2018, when market structure, participants, depth and ETF availability were substantially different. On that basis, the current bear market is about 235 days old, and Bitcoin is roughly 41% below its peak.

The three comparison bear markets lasted about 360 days in 2018, 249 days in 2019–2020 and 375 days after FTX. Their median duration is 363 days, so the current downturn has lasted about two-thirds as long. None of those prior markets had reached its bottom by day 235. At that point, Bitcoin was down about 67% in 2018 and 70% in the post-FTX bear market, compared with roughly 31% in 2019–2020 before the COVID crash.

Kanellis characterizes the present decline as a slower, grinding retracement, more like the early phase of 2019–2020 than the sharper sell-offs of 2018 or 2022. Previous capitulations coincided with shocks: the COVID crash in 2020, FTX in 2022, and a combination of factors in 2018, including the Coincheck hack and China-related crypto news. He sees no major black-swan event on the horizon, though he raises a possible collapse in an AI bubble as a potential comparable shock.

If this bear market lasts as long as the previous three, that historical comparison points to a possible end in September or October 2026. A separate cycle-based extrapolation suggests a trough around 68% below the all-time high, near $39,500–$40,000, which would mean about 46% more downside from current levels. The episode stresses that this sort of cycle analysis is “somewhat similar to astrology” and should be treated with a grain of salt. The past drawdowns also varied: the 2018 bear market ended about 83% below its peak, while the 2022 drawdown was around 76%.

The halving-to-peak intervals have been comparatively consistent: 526 days after the July 2016 halving, 548 days after the May 2020 halving and 535 days after the April 2024 halving. Kanellis hopes that ETFs, Strategy and other market forces will establish a higher floor for Bitcoin in this cycle, but presents that as a possibility, not a certainty. The duration and drawdown comparisons offer reference points rather than a reliable way to identify the current market’s eventual bottom.