While analysts are still waiting for the cycle bottom, the market is already rewriting the rules.

Writing: Fang Dao

“The bottom has not yet arrived.”

This is one of the easiest judgments to accept in the current market. Analyst Benjamin Cowen’s path based on historical cycles remains clear—Bitcoin typically bottoms about a year after its peak. Based on this, the low point of this cycle is more likely to occur at the end of 2026.

The reason this logic holds is because past cycles always unfold along the same path: emotions are amplified at the top, leverage accumulates accordingly, and ultimately liquidity is drained in a contraction.

But the current market problem isn’t about timing; it’s whether this path itself is still intact.

This cycle hasn’t seen the retail frenzy comparable to previous ones, nor has it formed leverage buildup of the same scale. Prices peaked without experiencing extreme emotional release.

When the market enters a correction phase, the lack of enough “forced selling” makes it difficult to trigger the familiar liquidity collapse.

That’s also why, on one hand, people discuss that the bottom hasn’t arrived, while on the other hand, prices remain resilient within the 75,000 to 78,000 range.

The market hasn’t rejected decline; it simply lacks the conditions for it.

This change is causing the cycle to deform. Past bottoms were often formed through intense clearing, but now they are more likely to be gradually completed through time and structural digestion. Prices no longer drop sharply but adjust repeatedly within a range.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin is being priced within a more complex macro environment for the first time.

Against the backdrop of geopolitical conflicts and energy price fluctuations, it hasn’t fully followed risk assets downward, nor has it behaved as a traditional safe-haven asset. Instead, it remains relatively stable amid volatility.

This is more like a test.

The market is verifying whether Bitcoin is still entirely constrained by its own cycle or has begun to develop the ability to operate independently amid external shocks.

If cycles still dominate everything, then macro variables will only amplify existing trends; but current performance suggests that prices are gradually breaking away from a single internal logic and starting to be influenced by broader factors.

Deeper changes are occurring in the holding structure.

In the past, Bitcoin’s price was mainly determined by trading behavior, but now more and more chips are entering corporate balance sheets and institutional allocation systems.

The characteristic of these funds is longer holding periods and higher exit costs.

When chips in the market no longer circulate frequently, prices no longer rely on sharp volatility for rebalancing but gradually recover through slower adjustments.

This also changes the source of returns. In the past, profits depended on volatility, but now they come more from the allocation itself. The trigger conditions for extreme market conditions are raised, and the price center gradually stabilizes.

In such an environment, the question of “has the bottom arrived” begins to become less critical. Because the bottom essentially depends on a clear emotional reversal, and the current market is losing the structural conditions to form such a reversal.

Returning to the 78,000 level. It is not just a price range but more like a boundary between two logics. On one side are traders still relying on historical experience waiting for the bottom; on the other are funds already beginning to reprice based on asset allocation.

Analyst judgments remain valid, but the premises they rely on are changing. The market isn’t denying cycles; it’s redefining them.

References

Benzinga Report

Benjamin Cowen’s viewpoints summarized