Analyst: The Era of Parabolic Bitcoin Surge May Have Ended, Market is Maturing

On April 1, Coindesk analyst Omkar Godbole stated that Bitcoin has been hovering around $70,000 since early February this year, significantly below the bull market peak of $126,000 expected between 2023 and 2025. The $70,000 mark is the historical high from the 2019 to 2022 market cycle, indicating that the current bear market has retraced to the peak of the previous cycle, a phenomenon that is relatively rare. During the bear markets of 2014 and 2018, Bitcoin never fell back to the previous cycle’s high; the only exception was in 2022 when the price dropped below the 2017 high of $20,000, which analysts attributed to crypto scams and large-scale deleveraging. The uniqueness of the current retracement lies in its occurrence in an environment lacking extreme catalysts, merely as part of a natural decline of the bear market cycle. Each new bull market no longer exhibits parabolic surges, making it increasingly difficult to push prices significantly beyond previous highs, as old highs are no longer untouchable. This is a typical manifestation of the law of diminishing returns: as Bitcoin’s price rises, the scale of capital required to drive price increases grows larger, and the era of triggering substantial rises through small capital inflows has essentially become history, resulting in a more stable and predictable price trend. The advancement of Bitcoin’s institutionalization and the expansion of the derivatives market have also contributed to the stabilization of extreme volatility, providing traders with structured tools to address volatility, timing, and market direction, rather than merely betting on price increases. This contrasts sharply with the pre-2020 era, when trading was almost limited to the spot market, and active participants were often staunchly bullish believers in Bitcoin, rushing to buy whenever prices experienced slight pullbacks. Old highs often formed strong support due to ‘anchoring bias’—investors who missed the initial breakout tend to buy when prices return to familiar ranges, providing momentum for the next market cycle, which also explains why the recent downward trend has stalled around $70,000. If Bitcoin experiences a strong rebound from current levels, it may indicate that the bear market is nearing its end; however, if the law of diminishing returns continues to take effect, the next upward trend may be more moderate, exhibiting orderly movements similar to traditional financial markets, rather than the frenzied surges of the past speculative era.