Bitcoin’s short and long dip to $72,000 on Tuesday, February 3, has now led to more analysts and asset managers accepting that the bear market has arrived.
Matt Hougan, CIO of digital asset manager Bitwise, said the “crypto winter” started in January 2025, and $75 billion in demand from ETF and treasury firms was the only thing keeping this winter going.
Otherwise Bitcoin [BTC] the price would have fallen by 60%, Hougon noted, adding:
“We have been in a crypto winter since January 2025. Chances are we are closer to the end than the beginning. We are in a full-blown crypto winter.”
According to Hougan, bear markets typically last 13 months. But he doubted whether the current arrangement would continue until November next year.
What’s next for Bitcoin and the crypto market?
While Julio Moreno, CryptoQuant’s head of research, agreed with Hougan’s analysis, he disagreed with his timestamps.
According to Morenothe bear market phase started in November 2025 and could possibly end later in 2026.
“The Bitcoin bear market started in November 2025, as suggested by on-chain and market data, and the timing has implications for when it will end. My current expectation is the third quarter of 2026.”
Source: X/Julio Moreno
For the unfamiliar, BTC fell below $100,000 and the bull market support of the 50-week Exponential Moving Average (EMA) in November.
From a price chart perspective, Moreno’s statement was essentially consistent with the AMBCrypto analysis.
Source: BTC/USDT, TradingView
Assessing the potential bottom of the crypto market
How low can the BTC correction go, with a possible reversal projected by mid-to-late 2026?
In the last cycle, the bear market bottomed out at the peak of the 2017 cycle.
If a similar trend occurs, that would be around $70,000, which is the market top for 2021.
In fact, this was the same level as indicated by Aurelie Barthere, Principal Research Analyst at crypto analytics firm Nansen. In an email statement, Barthere told AMBCrypto:
“The price movement in crypto is negative, and the capitulation has only just begun in ETFs. I would expect the bearish move to lead to BTC testing the $70,000 support.”
When asked what could help reverse the bearish trend, Barthere said a “potential passage of the CLARITY Act by Congress could help stabilize prices.”
However, on the chain facts showed the MVRV Z-Score trending downward toward the fair value zone that marked the bottoms of the last market cycle.
In other words, based on this metric, we may still be a long way from a true market bottom at the time of writing. Meanwhile, Fundstrat’s Tom Lee said “all the pieces” were in place for the market to recover.
Source: Glassnode
Final thoughts
- Bitwise’s CIO stated that the industry was in a “full” crypto winter, but that it could end soon.
- However, for CryptoQuant, winter ends in the third quarter of 2026, while Nansen saw $70,000 as potential support.