Bitcoin’s 11-Month Correction Could FINALLY Be Ending

VanEck has identified 12 Bitcoin capitulation signals, and 8 are currently firing. All 12 have fired at some point over the last three months, leading VanEck to conclude that Bitcoin's 11-month correction may finally be ending. Supporting technical indicators include bullish divergence on the weekly RSI, with the 200-week and 50-month moving averages both providing potential support at current levels. Bad news including self-custody issues and data breaches is failing to push Bitcoin's price lower, which is treated as a sign of strength near a potential bottom. The four-year cycle, which some had declared dead, appears to remain relevant, with August considered historically weak and October or November cited as the more likely turning point. The thesis is only validated if prices actually rise in the fall.

Strategy recently sold Bitcoin yet the market moved up and held those gains without Saylor as a buyer. The only prior instance of Strategy selling was near the bottom of the last bear market in the fifteen thousands, after which the firm bought back around seventeen thousand dollars, raising the question of whether the current sale carries similar timing significance. Capital outflows into semiconductors, AI, and SpaceX investments have weighed on the broader crypto market, and anticipated IPOs from OpenAI and Anthropic may continue absorbing capital through the end of this year or into early next year, with some expecting a rotation back into digital assets after those listings. Michael Saylor has argued that a ten-year Bitcoin gold rush will run until 2034, when 99 percent of all Bitcoin will have been mined, with infrastructure providers rather than prospectors expected to capture the most value.

The US SEC issued a surprise proposed rulemaking on crypto regulation after canceling a previously scheduled Friday vote. The proposal is not yet law and could be reversed by a future SEC. Key features include a four-year safe harbor period allowing tokens to work toward sufficient decentralization before exiting the investment contract regime, the ability for crypto startups to raise up to 5 million dollars without full SEC registration or investor caps, and a higher tier allowing larger projects to raise up to 75 million dollars per year with required disclosures. A white paper submission is sufficient during the safe harbor period with no financial filings required, and public token sales would be permitted without rule-based resale restrictions. A roughly 60-day public comment period is underway. This posture is nearly the opposite of the prior administration, which sued exchanges that attempted to register.

MiCA came into full effect across the 30-country European Economic Area on January 1, 2025, with a compliance deadline of July 1, 2026 for existing firms. Of an estimated 1,343 crypto service providers operating in Europe before MiCA, only 281 obtained licenses, representing approximately 21 percent. Roughly 80 percent of previously active crypto companies had to cease European operations, with Binance among those unable to secure a license. Obtaining a MiCA license requires substantial investment in specialized staff, law firms, compliance infrastructure, and proper wallet custody setup. Regulated license holders have straightforward access to bank relationships and local fiat on and off ramps, while unlicensed players cannot. MiCA 2.0 is already being drafted and is expected to focus on decentralized finance and the unresolved question of when a protocol qualifies as truly decentralized.

OKX, which did obtain a MiCA license, reported record inflows in new user signups and assets under management leading up to the July 1 deadline, with a second wave of inflows occurring when app stores began removing non-licensed exchange applications. An OKX speaker predicted that European regulators will move beyond app store removals to blocking URLs of unlicensed exchanges and characterized enforcement as genuine rather than symbolic. OKX's card product on the Mastercard network offers up to 10 percent cashback and is seeing significant month-on-month growth, with spending shifting toward travel and grocery transactions. OKX plans to offer tokenized stocks and pre-IPO products in Europe within approximately the next two weeks. Traditional banks in Europe are now hiring for blockchain expertise and in some cases generating double-digit percentages of annual revenue from crypto trading, though no crypto-native company currently holds a European banking license.

Citibank is planning to launch Bitcoin custody later this year through its new Custody Plus platform. Given Citibank's scale as one of the largest custodians of assets globally, the expectation is that holding Bitcoin in custody will likely lead the bank into Bitcoin lending as a next step. Ripple raised 270 million dollars through senior notes carrying an investment grade BBB rating to fund a prime brokerage push, drawing institutional investors. This is framed as evidence that Wall Street credit markets are beginning to treat crypto-native financial infrastructure as legitimate, though whether any value from the fundraise accrues to the XRP token is left as an open question for token holders to assess.