Bitcoin's Price May Have Bottomed. One Reason Is the AI Debasement Trade

Alex Thorn says Bitcoin may have bottomed in late June. At the time of the discussion, it was trading around $80,000, above its roughly $75,000 50-week moving average for five or six weeks. Thorn says the 200-week average has generally marked bear-market floors, while the 50-week average has served as a bear-market ceiling and bull-market support. In the three or four prior bear markets he considered, once Bitcoin reclaimed the 50-week average and logged multiple weekly closes above it, it did not later set a lower low. He cautions that the sample is small; a fall below the average that is not reversed within a month would weaken his timing case.

If this is the bottom, the downturn would be Bitcoin’s shallowest bear market, following the shallowest peak-to-peak cycle rise into its October 2025 all-time high. Thorn sees smaller price swings and lower volatility as signs of a more mature asset and ownership base. He is unsure whether Bitcoin’s long-term price curve will keep flattening or become hyperbolic again, and frames his view as a medium-term positioning assessment rather than a fundamental forecast.

Positioning appears light, in Thorn’s assessment. Fast-money investors sold ETF holdings while longer-term buyers added exposure, and CFTC data showed both asset-manager net longs and leveraged-trader net shorts had fallen substantially. The Bitcoin basis trade had largely dried up. Q2 filings showed macro hedge funds including Previn, Millennium, Capula and Deesha reducing or exiting positions, while sovereign wealth funds and wealth managers added exposure. Thorn says the buyers who helped move Bitcoin from $58,000 to $80,000 were likely longer-term holders rather than equity traders.

Thorn expects Q3 Bitcoin ETF ownership filings, covering positions as of September 30, to be due by November 16, making November 17 an important date to review the data. He argues that wealth-management capital with a longer horizon may be less sensitive to anxiety about equities and the AI trade. He also tracks dormant coins moving as a possible sales signal, but stresses that this is only a heuristic, not proof of selling. Old-coin awakenings averaged about 67,000 Bitcoin per month in 2024, 47,000 in 2025 and 34,000 from January through September 2026; he expects the 2026 total to be less than half of 2025’s. More than 10-year-dormant coins moved in July 2025, for instance, were part of Galaxy’s facilitation of an 80,000-Bitcoin sale for an early holder.

The AI buildout could reinforce Bitcoin’s appeal as a hedge against monetary debasement, Thorn and the other speakers argue. They say the buildout is being financed partly through private-market credit expansion and tax incentives, and expect further money printing whether it succeeds or needs a bailout. Thorn notes that U.S. national debt rose from $23 trillion in 2020 to about $40 trillion, roughly doubling since 2022, while cautioning that rising debt by itself is not a Bitcoin indicator. Bitcoin’s fixed supply and predictable monetary policy, he says, may appeal to investors worried about the dollar’s purchasing power. A major AI-market downturn could, in his view, prompt money creation to protect the AI and data-center buildout and strengthen the debasement case.

The thesis depends on Bitcoin eventually rising, and Thorn says a return to its previous all-time high of about $125,000 would not be surprising. He has not updated his earlier prediction of $250,000 by year-end 2027 and declined to forecast the next market top. He also warns that a major equity decline or broader economic shock could weigh on Bitcoin, as could a catastrophic AI-related cyber event or a cryptographically relevant quantum computer.