Bitcoin Forum

Looking at historical Bitcoin cycles, bull markets usually peak 12–18 months after a halving, followed by a year-long bear market. The last halving was in April 2024, and the current bull run has been strong—but if history repeats, we could be facing the next bear market any time from now until early 2026.

Are we on the verge of a major BTC drop, or will this cycle break the pattern?

Some people thinks that the bear market period is over, while some people think that it will come but bitcoin will be less volatile. Some people still think that bitcoin has been less volatile in each halving but the bear market will come.

I prefer to be on the later sides and I think 2026 may be for the bears but in a way bitcoin will not really fall. More institutions are coming in, so this may let us not really know what will happen, but we can wait till then and see what will happen.

This pull back has nothing to do with bear market, this doesn't looks like a sign of bear market. Maybe you should look at this monthly performance of Bitcoin.

https://talkimg.com/images/2025/09/23/UQZU4Z.jpeg

Every ember month, Bitcoin had a bad monthly historical performance, it usually start from September, October, November and December then a reverse pump on January and sometimes it doesn't. You can see from the chart that September isn't always good for Bitcoin, October is fair but November and December aren't good either.

What I observed from September this year was that market makers were trying so hard to avoid this poor performance but it seems this is already built character on the market to see this dump happening.

The only signal that can lead us to bear market is only if Bitcoin start trading below 200d moving average because it's one of the most respected support in the history of Bitcoin support. From the image below, you can see we are ahead of 200d moving average.

https://talkimg.com/images/2025/09/23/UQZax8.png

Until then, but for now, it's nothing serious.

Even if it comes, what would you do with it, or would you stop getting more BTC? ;)

Surely, Bear will come this way or another (as an analysis suggests from Cookdata, we are not yet here), but we are going to be okay in the long run.

Sure, bears come and go, but my bills don’t 😆. Selling some altcoins now, and still holding a bit of BTC for the long run.

This pullback might be a result of traders' liquidation of their assets. I have read several publications that the bull run is over but I don't believe it. Historically, September is not usually a green month in the crypto space. From my observation, this price drop is temporary, the bull run will last until early next year.  But we all know that nothing is certain so so your research and plan.

People will always have different ways of judging whether a market is bearish or bullish. However, in reality, the level of preparedness is often overlooked.
Data available from various sources, including current market conditions, should be supporting factors that can help someone analyze whether the future will be bearish or bullish.

Man, no matter how hard it is to believe in Bitcoin's positive future, the primary focus will not be on the price, but on how much Bitcoin one will own.

That's the big question, in my opinion. Patterns are models we create to project regularities into the future, and it often happens that those regularities change, which means we have to change the established patterns and projections based on them.

I doubt that, as things stand, even if the price does not rise much between now and the end of the year, 2026 will see a sharp decline, simply because of supply and demand. Perhaps what will happen is that the rise will be less sudden and more sustained over time thereby being the falls less steep as well.

We do not know how significant the decline will be in the upcoming changes in market trends. A decline is certainly going to happen, but I doubt it will be as large as it has been after the previous bull run.
The current market situation is different from a few years ago, even if a declining market trend occurs, I think the process will not happen in a short time. This does not mean breaking previous patterns, but I think there are changes.

In 2017, we've peaked at December, in 2021, we've reach our final all time high at October. So in this latest cycle, we are about around that same time already. But there is one difference, we have seen a new pattern wherein there was a new all time high before the halving itself. So it divert from the last two cycle. So it's really hard to see where we are right now, are we in the bear market? Or this is just like we are in a super cycle wherein we can still go and reach another all time high and that this is just a correction that we are seeing and then in the next three months, there could be another surge in price. So very hard to answer your question mate. Even if we look at some technical analysis, it could be invalidated in a snap.

Several news reports on X now say that many traders have been liquidated.
There has been a lot of talk about this publication, saying that they will enter a bearish market after bitcoin experiences a slight correction --- but this isn't a sharp decline, right? For me, there is still hope in the next few months, so my perception is that a bearish market will not come at this time.
This is just my view on market movements.

I know what the OP is talking about, the next phase in the Bitcoin cycle where we enter
a bear market between 12 and 18 months post halving, which is around now. This
has been something I have been mindful of for a few weeks now but...

I think its more difficult to predict now than after any previous halvings because a
lot has changed since the previous one.

These topics may have something to do with what happens soon -

Spot ETF's and institutional investors
Michael Saylors increasing influence
Changing geopolitical landscape and the Trump factor

I'm one of those guy who believe the pattern will be broken since there are too many variables already and I doubt something as disastrous as FTX collapse could repeat with the regulation in place.
You know it needs massive disaster to trigger such devastating bearish sentiment and right now maybe the only thing possible is through some stablecoin with billion dollars FDV depegging however since new bill about stablecoin passed in the USA
that requires audit, I doubt there'd be massive depegging as long as reserve can hold the peg.

That's why i'm very doubtful whether bearish market gonna come and follow cyclical pattern like as you described or just straight go up again.

I don't know when bear season will come but I know one thing for sure, even if this cycle breaks the previous old pattern of the market. Bear season will also come at other times. Because no financial market can go up in a straight line or have only bull seasons without bear seasons. Bear season is inevitable, it's just a matter of time. So always be prepared for that, don't rest on your laurels or get too complacent that bitcoin price will always go up.

If history repeats itself then it means we top sometime in Oct-Dec like in the previous 3 cycles. From what I recall we topped in Nov 2013, then Dec 2017, then Dec 2021 if my memory serves me right. And we had a bear market bottom exactly a year later, followed by an uptrend. Bitcoins price is still pretty high and we can break ATH one more time before topping.

With the amount of chaos going on in the world I wouldn't be surprised. And I honestly think we got an AI bubble going on in the stock market. What is happening to ORCL and NVDA stock and even TSLA just doesnt make sense. Same with the SP500 EPS. Everything is overpriced and over extended. However who knows, maybe this time it will be different.

I agree with you that for a bear market to happen, there has to be a big enough disaster to trigger it. But it seems like you are focusing too much on the market and forgetting that market movements depend not only on micro factors but also on macro factors from economics and politics.


Remember the Covid pandemic or the Russia-Ukraine war? They even cause damage that is more serious than collapses like FTX or Luna.

Recently, the Fed cut interest rates, but that's because the economy is at risk of falling into recession, not because it's getting better. Therefore, if a recession occurs, it’s entirely possible that we could face an unprecedented bear market.

Well, the bull run has been inline with the 4-year cycle pattern and so, it's likely that we'll see the bear market by 2026. It's too early to say about  if predictions are telling that it will happen by this year end. Not yet IMHO and 2026 is giving that stronger sense that everyone needs to stock up their stable coins if they want to take advantage once the bear market is in. However, I think that we're all open to the idea if the cycle breaks this time.

It is unpredictable what will happen to Bitcoin. We can just guess, wait and see and act based on the current situation. If the bear comes, we can wait and prepare our funds to continue accumulating Bitcoin for some years or some terms. We don't have to panic if the bear comes because we may not think clearly about what we will do. But personally, I think Bitcoin can increase after the price seems difficult to rise especially in the next month. However, I have already prepared for many things especially if the situation becomes worse. I don't want to panic and lose the opportunity to buy or sell Bitcoin or altcoins.

BTC price will increase in the near future hopefully, so it's good you keep holding your BTC you can still be buying more to stack it up more when ever you have your discretionary income. You can sell more Altcoins to pay up some bills bills always keep going altcoins aren't what we should be holding it can go to zero anytime.

How about selling all your altcoins and buy BTC since it is a store of value.

We cannot avoid the upcoming bear market. But we do not know when it will start. Right now we are going down, but not quickly. Everything is happening gradually. Because we also see how Bitcoin's growth this year is occurring gradually, I think the onset of the bear market may not come with a sudden change in market trends in a short time. But I hope there will be a price spike once again that creates a new ATH before the market trend changes.

But not all altcoins will go to 0. If bitcoin never goes to 0, I also believe ETH or soon-to be ETF approved altcoins like Sol, XRP, AVAX or even Doge will never go to 0.

While investing in altcoins is risky, we need to admit that things have changed significantly from years ago and this is true not only for bitcoin but also for many other altcoins. Governments are legalizing and even using some altcoins in their financial systems. So, long term investment in these altcoins is not a bad thing and even has the potential to give better returns than bitcoin.

If we're like some of you suggest following the previous bull-bear patterns then first of all we're coming towards the best period in every bull market - Q4 in the year after the halving. Historically this is the best 3 months for price. Also, if we follow the way cycles used to work, we should see a blow-off top this cycle which has not happened yet.

Now, if we won't get that top and won't see any gains in q4, I don't believe we will have a normal bear market like in 2014, 2018, or 2022. Instead we'll have a boring slow and weak correction of something like 20% over the course of a few months and start growing from there.

While I agree that Bitcoin won't ever go to zero, but altcoins are always doubtful. Sure ETH got it's first ETF approved and working right now, but even with that I still have my doubts, certainly have no doubts about others having a possibility of going to zero. Things like SOL, XRP, AVAX or Doge could go to zero very quickly, I am not saying they will, I am just saying the possibility is there and it may go there.

So it would be smarter if we could avoid making big claims or huge investments on them. Why do you think people support diversification of portfolio so much? Because it's clear that we are going to end up with results that will be not that great, and will end up with something that is going to take a while.

i don’t think we’ll see a massive dump like before. the market has far more investors now institutional investors, etfs, and global adoption are all much higher. earlier, btc could suddenly drop 80–90%, but that’s less likely now. even if there is a drop, it might be around 30–40%. the next halving is coming up, and when it happens, the btc mined by miners will enter the market again, which could push the price down. this year’s bull run has been very strong. bitcoin’s price has started to dip over the past 3–4 days. whether this is the start of a dump or if it will pump once more before dropping is hard to predict.

If you believe that bitcoin will not be dumped as hard as before, it will not fall 80-90% if the bear season comes again, just because of the participation of institutions, large investors, ETFs. You also need to admit that bitcoin will not be able to grow exponentially during bull season anymore because bitcoin is not small anymore. With a market cap of over $2 trillion and with such a large market cap, 2-5x growth in a short period of time is not possible.

Bitcoin can only grow exponentially unless there is a massive dump, like what happened in previous cycles. Therefore, I still believe and expect bitcoin to be dumped heavily in the upcoming bear season.

Despite the bullish market spend long time in the market, doesn't mean there will no be bearish market again soon, looking at what happened few hours ago show that bearish season is very close for holders to experience because the price of bitcoin has decreased to $110k to make some buyers and sellers to think well on what to do next, even though the bearish market will not be too low in this year, I believe it will going to decrease lower next year for buyers to buy bitcoins and hold for up coming bullish, the price can still increase little in the market before it will begin to decrease to enter bearish season.

Drop to $110k by any mean doesn't indicate coming of bearish, just some consolidation here and there after distribution, maybe people are just confused what the next step the market would have.
I would worry more about bearish if we see $80k again but so far that's not likely to play out.

Just see how by the next week market will turn green and people will be bullish again, historically speaking september has been bad and october always show green. From the past decade, only two october has been red.
Current dump is to prepare for the next rally.

It can happen anytime, but how can we navigate these conditions to capitalize on opportunities for sound investments? People with a plan and strategy find it easier to plan, as there are times when we shouldn't rush into the market for fear of missing out. Many of us fail to capitalize on these conditions, and this happens because we don't know how to prepare. Bitcoin's recurring cycle should serve as a guide for when to enter and exit the market. If we don't learn this, we'll always be too late to capitalize on the momentum.

You believe bitcoin can't go to zero but doubt it can happen with altcoins that have approved ETFs. Simply because you are biased and don't want to accept reality.
Because in all fairness, everything has risks and anything can happen, even millennial assets like gold or real estate have risks, bitcoin is no exception.


Also, when Doge first launched in 2013 or ETH, many bitcoin maximalists also declared that they were going to die. But as you can see, nothing has happened to them yet. Or Solana gets dumped and is only $8 in 2022 when FTX goes bankrupt, SBF goes to jail. Most people assume it will die but then what? Not only has it increased more than 50x in the past 2 years, but it also has a chance to become the 3rd coin to be approved ETFs.


I am all for diversification but should we invest heavily in ETH, SOL or DOge? I think you should ask that to big investors on Wall Street like Blackrock, Tomlee's BitMine who are investing billions of dollars in ETH. Or Cathie Wood's ARK Invest is raising and investing over $300 million in SOL. Because I believe that with their experience and financial knowledge, they are not stupid enough to pour billions of dollars into something that can disappear or go to zero.

With the market performance going on and how we have been seeing bitcoin falling instead of rising to all time high, we should not draw on a concluding side yet, because this may be a preparation for it to rise, I've seen it happened before that the market falls before rising, so we should not only look at the short term implication, instead the long one and consider the way it could rise more and made all time high sooner, while the bear can be for next year after we must have been done with the bull season.

I don't usually rely on the past to predict the future because bitcoin is not a linear system. Bitcoin price movements are determined by many different factors, and the factors and their impacts change over time. So I don't believe in predictions based on past data.

But I agree with you that the market will turn green in the coming weeks and people will be optimistic again. Because economic data shows that our economy is stabilizing again and this is a good sign for speculative assets like bitcoin.

The CPI and core CPI numbers were just released and everything came in as expected, which means the Fed will continue to cut rates and that is a very positive sign.

This cycle could be different from previous ones and could also break the pattern, as Bitcoin still has the incentive to rebound after a price correction like the one we're currently experiencing. Next year could indeed be bearish, but I don't envision a greater level, as the number of Bitcoin enthusiasts has grown significantly, so the level of bearishness may be significantly different from what has occurred in previous cycles. However, everyone needs to prepare for this and try not to panic just because of the current situation.

That's fair and I think fed rate cut will play a big role here. The reason why I still consider historical data such as bullish or bearish indicator based on monthly performance for the past decade is because it influences people's and market's psychology.
They become less afraid of buying after the recent discount or should I say it flash dump because september has always been an uptober for the most part which means higher conviction.

I'm just recognizing that in the previous ATH before bitcoin trying to break out the market were also dumping every end of the month and start picking up later early of the next month.
I guess same thing will also play out here, I could be biased though since I hold bitcoin and just recently bought more.

Its not the best idea to set a time limit or schedule to Bitcoin as I dont think BTC is watching the clock like that.   The only timing we do know of is the ten minute time per block and thats roughly how it might keep time but that does vary a bit also.

  I dont think there is any precise calendar of events and even the block reward halving each time is becoming increasingly less important and now external factors matter more so judging on BTC alone is going to become more inaccurate.
  I dont estimate any bear this year, you could say the year is already at end and to me it makes no difference in how BTC course progresses; I doubt any indication towards a grand sell is developing in such a short time.

If we review the price history of Bitcoin and take a decision. Then we will be able to understand very easily that if we hold Bitcoin then even if Bitcoin cannot give any profit in the short term, Bitcoin will definitely be able to give good profit in the long term. After a long period of bullishness, the market may generally feel a bit bearish, but if Bitcoin is deposited with the aim of holding it for the long term without panicking, then there is nothing to lose in a slight price correction. Bitcoin will be able to rise to new heights in every bull run. This is the biggest strength for an investor.

Breaking the same pattern as in previous years is certainly difficult to predict. Many important factors influence this price. Indeed, many say we are currently on the verge of a Bitcoin bull market peak. Why should you fear a major decline? If you've held Bitcoin long enough, there's no harm in enjoying the rewards of your investment this year. You've heard the saying "holding is winning." The longer you hold Bitcoin and continue to accumulate it, the higher the value you'll achieve on your investment.

Even if the old pattern is broken, bear season will come at another time in the future. So we should prepare for that, don't be naive to think that because the cycle is broken the bear market will never come.


Many people also make similar predictions, many believe that thanks to the participation of ETFs, organizations, and companies, the market will be more stable. But there are no guarantees, it depends on the cause and what impacts there are during bear season. If there is a crisis, recession, prepare for a major economic collapse and bitcoin will not be immune.

In fact, we should expect that a bear can then take place because people are usually selling heavily on the bull times. Anyways, 110k USD for me is still a bit high to say that a bear is now incoming, add in the fact that we just start the final quarter of the year. You know, good things usually occur here too.

Small decrease is still possible but the term for it is not bear I believe, rather it is only a simple 'decrease' or also a correction. You are right that a true bear can prolly start next year, even on the beginning of its month. Oh well, that seem a perfect time to start a new season and people should be now ready for it.

Market performance will always be there, whether it is negative or positive. Each has their own goal and then many factors revolve around BTC, so it is wrong to say that it should go like this instead of this, because it will always go on the force that currently favours it. We might still get lucky sometimes though that our assumptions are correct. A fall can also be a sign of more fall but a rise can also indicate an incoming fall. But yeah, it is always better to be positive if stuff is not in our favour, in order for us to continue and succeed.

We can expect a dump of maybe around 20% if we continue the cycle but this time, we have seen major adoption which does include institutional interest so we can expect this to break the cycle this time. We can still watch for any signs of bear markets like declining volume, broken supports or macro tightening. As of now, the volume looks good and also bitcoins are holding the levels affirmatively. This means that Q4 of 2025 might show us a good rally but yes maybe in mid 2026, we might experience a crash as bitcoins have proven to follow previous cycles multiple times.

Global economics like inflation, interest rates and regulations will fuel the bear cycle but we can also expect a reverse trend if everything goes in favour of bitcoins. I'm not so sure about the bear cycle but as of now am definitely expecting huge price jump at least until the end of 2025.

Things have gotten more unpredictable since ETFs were approved and Wall Street got involved. So we cannot know whether the old cyclical pattern will repeat or be broken. But we can be sure that sooner or later, the bull season will end and the bear season will come because that is the law of the financial market, and Bitcoin is no exception.

If bear season doesn't come in 2026, it will come in 2027 or 2028.

Personally I believe that history repeats itself and I only abandon the old pattern when it is completely broken.

There's nothing wrong with following the historical pattern; it's given and depends on each of us.
But there are already lot has already happened and a lot of new things now...

For example, the trading volume, the market cap, the adoption, the institution being involved in the market now, etc.
That's why, for me, old patterns in the Bitcoin market seem really off already, as you need to consider a lot of things now, even let's say you will base in price movement on the charts, that's why I started not to fully invest on using historical patterns to identify the next move of the market, especially inthe  cryptocurrency market.

In this Q4 of the year, we'll find out the exact position Bitcoin is heading at. Just relax and keep hodling until the last month of the year because anything can happen before then for a bullish market.

By next year probably, we will all talk about a bearish market, but for now, the focus is on what is to come. Bitcoin is giving a different ATH close to or above $150k, as many have been predicting for it to happen this year.

These factors are quite important but yet less effective when it comes to bitcoins following the past cycles. Bitcoins tend to react less for these kind of fundamentals instead will focus on following previous cycles as that is what most of the people will be expecting and will trade accordingly.

Yes, a lot of things have changed since the last cycle but some factors still remain the same. I am looking for sudden crashes as they can easily change into a bear cycle. Trading with caution is very much required at least in the coming year. This year was great for bitcoins as we touched a new ATH and the rally was really very long. But, what happens if we start seeing sudden crashes? That will just trigger the bear cycle and we should be prepared for worst case scenarios without panicking.

I don't know how you said it because nothing can be said with certainty about the rise and fall of bitcoin. We have no way of knowing which way the market will go we can only guess by analyzing, that's all we can say for sure. But I don't know how you said it, but the dumping of bitcoin could be more than what you indicated, nothing can be said with certainty.

Indeed, no one can accurately predict the exact outcome. All possibilities can happen right now, including a deeper decline. I also didn’t expect the drop to reach $105k. But now, in a short time, Bitcoin is priced at $112k. If Bitcoin repeats its current price strengthening, there is a possibility that a price surge could happen again this month. We may not have truly entered a bear market yet.

A misconception that many have made in this cycle, too many are naive to think that with the involvement of ETFs, Wall Street and institutions. They will be able to save the market from a massive dump or the market will become more stable.

I hope you and those who still have that naive mindset will soon wake up to what happened a few hours ago. Bitcoin down over 10%, many altcon /2, /3 and over $20 billion liquidated with just a small announcement from trump. Just think how much Bitcoin will fall if there is a recession or economic crisis? I wouldn't be surprised if it drops 70-80% like previous cycles.

Bitcoin is still the same, it is still a speculative market and institutions and companies can still lose and fall prey to the market. They can't save the market, don't be naive.

The rate at which Bitcoin recovers after every drop is a clear proof that the bulls have not given up on the market just yet and that is a sign that the bears have not also dominated either. Just that the recent behavior of Bitcoin makes it complex to predict what will be the price by the end of this year. I will be a little disappointed if Bitcoin did not reach $150k before the end of this year because that is where most people set as their expected peak of this market cycle. Buying at the current dip is definitely going to be a good choice because the price will definitely rise.

Nothing is guaranteed in bitcoin and at the same time everything is possible. There’s every possibility that bitcoin could give us another all time high even before the month ends just as it did in the first week of the month and later declined to $105k within that same period and quickly surged back to the current $112k we are seeing now. There’s also a possibility that it could even go down below $100k but one thing is for sure, the price of bitcoin will continue to rise even though it goes down at a particular point in time. Now is the best time to seize the opportunity and accumulate more and hold.

It's actually wild that when I started this thread, we were at the same price as today:)

That's true because the decline will just be a couple of thousand dollars and we already are trending above $114 thousand. Even a major decline will not wipe away the profits if might just reduce the profits overtime but still long term holders will always be in profit no matter what happens so I really think that a lot of people are going to keep holding bitcoins even if we enter the bear market which will reduce the life of this bear season and markets will eventually rebound and continue the bull cycle.

Holding patiently has always shown us promising returns and I personally will continue doing so no matter what happens. In fact, I would even hold if we go back to $90k because sooner or later, markets will move 10x that what the actual price is. I have learnt this in 2017 end bear cycle so I would personally never repeat this mistake again.