So I've been looking at when the crypto bull run will actually kick off, and it's way more nuanced than most people think. Everyone's obsessed with finding the bottom, but honestly that's not where the real move starts.

Right now Bitcoin is sitting around $76K, up about 2.3% over the last day. But here's the thing - we're still down roughly 40% from that October peak of $126K. The market's pretty split on whether we've already bottomed out or if there's more pain coming. That's the million-dollar question.

I came across this analyst CrypFlow who makes a solid point: the bottom isn't the start of a bull run. The bottom is just where selling stops. That's totally different from when the actual trend flips bullish. You need confirmation on the chart that Bitcoin isn't acting like a bear market anymore.

He's looking at two key technical levels - the 50-week SMA and the -14 wave trend indicator. These have been like dividing lines between bearish and bullish territory. Back in 2021, Bitcoin topped out and then broke below both of these, which basically announced the 2022 bear market was coming. When we finally recovered, the bull run didn't really take off until Bitcoin reclaimed both of those levels.

Now in this cycle, we're still below the descending trendline from the peak, price is under the 50-week SMA, and that wave trend is still sitting below -14. So even with these little rallies we're seeing, we're technically still in corrective mode.

Here's what needs to happen before the crypto bull run actually gets going: Bitcoin has to break above that downtrend, reclaim the -14 on the wave trend, and get back above the 50-week SMA. When all three of those line up, that's when you can actually say the cycle has turned. Until then, any recovery is basically unconfirmed.

The 50-week SMA is a lagging indicator anyway, so it's not about catching the exact bottom - it's about confirming the trend has shifted. That's the real signal to watch when asking when the crypto bull run starts. The technicals will tell you when it's real.