Remember that electric feeling in early October when Bitcoin blasted past $126,000 and it felt like the sky was the only limit? Yeah, me too. Fast forward six weeks and the mood has flipped completely. As I write this on November 26, 2025, we’re sitting just under $90,000 – that’s a brutal 30% haircut in record time. And here’s the part that actually worries me: a growing chorus of sharp analysts believe the bleeding isn’t finished yet.
It’s not just random noise either. There are very specific mechanics at play right now that could easily keep the downward pressure alive straight through New Year’s Eve and possibly longer. I’ve been through enough cycles to know that when certain patterns line up, ignoring them is usually expensive.
The Real Reason This Dip Feels Different
Most corrections feel chaotic but eventually find support pretty quick. This one? It has structure – almost textbook, actually. The difference is who bought the top and how they’re behaving now.
Think about it. For the first time ever, we had millions of completely new investors jumping in above $100,000 through spot ETFs. These aren’t the battle-tested degens who survived 2018 or 2022. These are regular brokerage accounts that got FOMO at the absolute worst moment. When the chart turns red, their muscle memory says “sell before it gets worse.” That’s new fuel for a bear phase.
The ETF Cost-Basis Trap Nobody Saw Coming
Here’s a number that stopped me cold when I first saw it: the average cost basis for U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF holders sits right around $83,000. We’re already bouncing along that level like it’s magnetized. In my experience, when price keeps kissing the average entry of a massive new investor class, it rarely stops there. It usually punches through and shakes out the weak hands before reversing.
“BTC bear markets typically end after wealth transfers to stickier holders. Capitulation from top buyers, including HODLers that bought above $100,000, will likely signify the bottom.”
– Senior crypto analyst at a major research firm
That quote has been rattling around my head for days because it’s uncomfortably accurate. Every major cycle has featured exactly this wealth transfer dynamic. The question is whether we’re watching it play out in real time.
Even the Die-Hards Are Taking Profits
Perhaps the most interesting aspect – and the one that genuinely surprised me – is that long-term holders are selling too. Not dumping everything, but definitely trimming. You can see it clearly in the on-chain data: coins that hadn’t moved in 2-5 years are suddenly hitting exchanges.
Why now? Part of it is simple human nature. When something 10x’s in eighteen months, even the strongest hands start thinking about beach houses. But there’s also this almost religious belief in the four-year halving cycle that’s driving behavior.
- 2024 halving → 2025 blow-off top → 2026 “bear market year”
- Take profits at the peak of year one post-halving
- Re-accumulate during year two when nobody wants it
Whether you buy the cycle theory or not (I’m honestly agnostic), enough people trade by it that it becomes self-fulfilling. And right now, that script says “sell strength in 2025, buy weakness in 2026.”
Leverage Got Absolutely Rinsed
One silver lining? The perpetual futures market has already seen historic liquidation cascades. We’ve had multiple $1 billion+ wipeouts in the past month alone. That’s actually healthy in a twisted way – it clears out the exact kind of explosive leverage that makes crashes worse.
But – and this is crucial – funding rates still aren’t consistently negative yet. Until we see sustained negative funding (meaning shorts are paying longs), the market hasn’t fully flipped to “fear” mode. We’re in no-man’s-land psychologically, which usually means more chopping before real capitulation.
The “True Market Mean” Level Everyone Is Watching
There’s this fascinating metric floating around trading circles called the True Market Mean – basically the average price at which Bitcoin has traded during the current cycle, weighted properly. Right now it sits around $82,000, almost exactly where we’ve been finding support.
In past cycles, price has repeatedly tested this level before eventually breaking lower to shake out remaining bulls, then forming the actual bear market bottom well below it. If history is any guide (and it usually rhymes), $82k might hold for now… but probably not forever.
What Would Actually Signal a Real Bottom?
I’ve been asking myself this question nonstop. Here are the specific things I’ll be watching for before I get aggressively bullish again:
- Sustained negative perpetual funding rates (shorts paying longs = max fear)
- Clear on-chain accumulation by long-term holders picking up coins from weak hands
- ETF outflows slowing dramatically or reversing
- Price decisively breaking and then reclaiming the True Market Mean
- Extreme sentiment readings (Fear & Greed Index in the teens)
We’re seeing hints of some of these, but not the full cocktail yet. Until we do, I think it’s prudent to expect continued pressure.
The Broader Market Context Nobody Wants to Talk About
Let’s zoom out for a second. Risk assets across the board are wobbly right now. AI stocks that carried the market higher for two years are finally rolling over on valuation concerns. Bond yields are doing weird things. The macro backdrop just isn’t screaming “risk-on” like it was in October.
Bitcoin doesn’t exist in a vacuum. When the overall mood shifts to risk-off, everything correlated gets dragged lower – and right now Bitcoin’s correlation with tech stocks is still uncomfortably high.
So When Does This End?
Nobody knows exactly, of course. But if you forced me to make a prediction based on everything I’ve seen across multiple cycles, I’d say we probably grind lower into early 2026, with a high probability of testing the $70,000–$75,000 zone at minimum. Maybe lower if macro conditions deteriorate.
The good news? These periods of maximum pain are where life-changing wealth is made for those patient enough to zoom out. The same people panicking out of their ETF shares today will be the ones trying to buy back in at $200,000+ in 2027, wondering how they ever sold.
The best opportunities come when everyone else has given up. That’s when the real money gets positioned.
I’ve lived through this movie before. The script rarely changes. The question is whether you’re going to be one of the people selling your future wealth at a discount… or the one quietly accumulating while everyone else loses their mind.
For now, the pressure on Bitcoin looks set to linger well into 2026. But pressure creates diamonds – and the next cycle is already being built under the surface, one shaken-out weak hand at a time.
