Supercycle vibes are back

[d5000]

After the bullish late August, there are chances (for me, it's 50/50 at this time) that we have already seen the low of this cycle. This would mean the bear market was exceptionally short this time: only 9 months (mid October to mid June).

We already had an 9 month bear market in 2019-20 (June to March, from 14,000 to 3,500$) but many did not consider it a "real bear" because it was outside of the 4 year cycle.

What if this time it's the same and the bear market could be also considered only an intermediate dip, and we're still in a bullish Supercycle?

The 2025-26 bear (-54%) was even lighter than the 2019/20 bear (-75%). It was closer to the another intermediate bear: the one in 2021 (-49%).


Another Supercycle indicator: a Displaced Moving Average (DMA) I crafted myself from the 200 week SMA which represents the long term average price considering the movements of the last four years and used to decline in bear markets, this time, did not decline in the 2025-26 bear market. Instead it was bullish all the time and sits now at roughly 90,000$ (red chart line, the violet line is the weekly spot price):


See https://dune.com/d5k/bitcoin-long-term-price-indicators

Compare that to the 2021-22 bear, when you see this indicator declined from 41,000 to 35,000 $ roughly. i.e. 15%.

What do you think: is the Supercycle idea still on the table? Or, if we don't see a lower low this year, are cycles simply becoming less volatile? I'm still undecided.

[Floczy]

I personally suspect it to be the normal cycle...

First of all, I notice that moving averages forms completely after significant moves has been completed, if the market eventually makes a new ATH from here I can confidently predict a reaction from the moving average (noticable bent downward). but for now you will not notice it. I can say that the same thing happened in the last bear market as well.

Generally I will consider it to be volatility overall, this bear market of 54% is also serious and significant enough to be considered among the traditional 4 year circle, altho it may not be as the last, but you see that Bitcoin now has larger engagement, years to come might even be less volatile than this.

[sergiorus]

I'm a bit torn about that.

It does feel like a super cycle and I see some bright minds on Twitter thinking so. But the bottom accumulation in 2026 played out exactly the same way as in 2022. I made a thread about it, long story short: the price spent approximately the same amount of time (116 daily candles vs 119 daily candles IIRC) below the previous ATH in both cases.

Of course the overall contraction from the ATH in % wasn't as great, but it makes sense because the % of gain from the lows wasn't anywhere as great either.

Maybe 4-year cycle theory is indeed dead now but the 10/10/2025 event was so lethal for many aspects of the industry, it caused a reaccumulation as long as it happens in bear markets?

[Zaguru12]

What do you think: is the Supercycle idea still on the table? Or, if we don't see a lower low this year, are cycles simply becoming less volatile? I'm still undecided.

This your analysis has actually cast uncertainty in my opinion too, I have never viewed this cycle as a super cycle, my analysis ever since the last bull run that ended in October which is very unusual I speculated that the cycles are now very less volatile. Although the bullish trend might said to have started before the halving but we saw that the run after the halving wasn’t as bullish as it used to be and I think that bearish cycle might be following similar pattern.

At $57k I do think bitcoin has bottomed here and even if the current run isn’t going to break more highs this year I do think it will predominantly consolidate instead of between this $57k and any height it attains again.

So my vote is actually for cycles are simply becoming more less volatile.

[d5000]

But the bottom accumulation in 2026 played out exactly the same way as in 2022. I made a thread about it, long story short: the price spent approximately the same amount of time (116 daily candles vs 119 daily candles IIRC) below the previous ATH in both cases.

Can you link me the thread? I don't understand how you measured this, because normally you'd see more daily candles below the previous ATH in a 12 month bear market than in a 9 month bear market (the ATH was never reached again in both cases ...).

Maybe 4-year cycle theory is indeed dead now but the 10/10/2025 event was so lethal for many aspects of the industry, it caused a reaccumulation as long as it happens in bear markets?

This is indeed a point I'd agree with. Above all we could mention the small Bitcoin treasuries that were created during early to mid 2025, which followed the StrategyBTC model but with a much higher initial buying price. For these entities the current price of >70000 and even >80000 is still catastrophically low and some have already declared bankruptcy.

It would be interesting if something similar happened in 2019/20 on a smaller scale. A quick Google search found no notable examples (besides smaller exchange insolvencies like FCoin). So this would be indeed an indicator that we've presenced a "real bear" market until now. And of course a lower low is still on the table as an option.

[sergiorus]

Can you link me the thread? I don't understand how you measured this, because normally you'd see more daily candles below the previous ATH in a 12 month bear market than in a 9 month bear market (the ATH was never reached again in both cases ...).

Sure, here you go.

Basically I just counted daily candles that closed below $20,000 in 2022 and daily candles closed below $69,000 in 2025. Also counted how many such candles it took to put the low and then sweep the liquidity below it again. The results were almost identical in both comparisons.

It would be interesting if something similar happened in 2019/20 on a smaller scale.

Cryptopia, Liqui. Both were well known mid-size exchanges.

But the main catalyst were the companies sitting on their ICO funds (which for many of them were in the range of 100 thousand to 1 million ETH), slowly going bust without a decent working and profitable product, eventually having to liquidate it all at or near the bottom.

I believe that extreme selling pressure on ETH, eventually pushing it into the double-digit price area was what dragged the whole market, including BTC down back then.

[d5000]

Thanks, now I understood Nice indicator. However, it only works from 2022 onwards, as in earlier bears the previous ATH was only very shortly broken (in 2015, during a short time the April 2013 high was broken, but some see this one as a temporary bull market high), and in 2017/18 it never went below the 2013 high.

The lower difference between the 69k high in 2021 and the 126k high in 2026 may also explain why so many days in 2026 closed below 69k, despite of the lower overall volatility. I think it is only a matter of time until we will reach ATHs and then dip below the previous ATH for a year or so. It would just be "normal" in a context of less volatility.

Take the following example:

- 2027: ATH 150k
- 2028: bear market down to 90k
- 2029: slow recovery, ATH 170k
- 2030: bear market down to 120k (this one would have dipped even below *two* ATHs before)

In this scenario, the difference between highs and lows would be lower each time (2028: 40% crash after the ~55% in 2025-26, 2030: 30% crash) but nevertheless the "days closed below previous ATH" indicator would be triggered in a long stretch of the bearish year.

Still I think your indicator is indeed a point for the theory that we're (or "were") not in a Supercycle but in a less volatile bear market.

Regarding 2019, Cryptopia went bankrupt during the short but quite steep 2019 bull market. But the ETH selloff may indeed have been one of the catalysts of the 2019 bear.