Analyst: Bitcoin Bear Market May Bottom Near $37.5K Around Oct 2026
Bitcoin plunged more than 30% after an October 10, 2025 crash that liquidated over $19 billion in leveraged positions, losing ground below $90,000. Analyst Ali Martinez applies a historical 4‑year cycle top/bottom framework: Bitcoin’s cycle tops have appeared 1,064 days after prior bottoms, and the October 2025 all‑time high fit that pattern. Martinez therefore marks the October 2025 top as the start of a bear market and projects a typical correction period of about 364 days, placing a potential cycle low near October 2026. Using past bear-market drawdowns (84% in 2017–18 and 77% in 2021–22), he averages an ~80% peak‑to‑trough decline, implying a bottom near $37,500. The projection follows traditional 4‑year cycle theory but faces challenges from changing market structure — institutional flows, ETFs, and on‑chain developments — which some analysts argue may alter historical patterns.
Bearish
The article presents an analyst projection that a sustained bear market began after the October 2025 ATH and could see BTC fall roughly 80% to around $37,500 by October 2026. This forecast is explicitly bearish and would entail a material reduction in market capitalisation, leverage unwinds, and risk‑asset repricing. Historical parallels (2017–18 and 2021–22 cycles) show similar deep corrections after peaks, which previously triggered prolonged weakness, liquidation cascades and falling on‑chain activity. Short‑term implications: increased volatility, selling pressure, and elevated liquidation risk for leveraged traders; key resistances near $90K likely to cap rallies. Long‑term implications: if the 4‑year cycle holds, institutional entrants and ETF flows may pause or reverse, prolonging consolidation and delaying renewed bullish trends until macro/flow conditions improve. However, the view is conditioned on cycle theory — if structural changes (institutional ownership, ETFs, regulatory backing) decouple BTC from historical cycles, actual downside could be less severe, making this a high‑uncertainty bearish scenario rather than a certainty.