Bitcoin may already be two months into a bear market, according to certain metrics such as the one-year moving average, says CryptoQuant’s head of research.
During an episode of the Milk Road show on Thursday, CryptoQuant’s Julio Moreno said most of the metrics he uses for the bull score index turned bearish in early November and have yet to recover.
The index measures market conditions using indicators like network activity, investor profitability, Bitcoin demand, and liquidity, and ranges from 0 to 100.
“For me the last confirmation, it's a technical indicator, which is the price going below its one-year moving average, that's the technical indicator that I would say confirms this.”
A one-year moving average is the average price of an asset over 12 months, and used to show long-term trends.
The price of Bitcoin (BTC) started 2025 at around $93,000 and peaked at $126,080 in October before ending the year lower than it began, according to crypto data aggregator CoinGecko.
If Bitcoin is in a bear market, it goes against many analyst predictions that see 2026 as a growth year for Bitcoin.
Bitcoin bottom could be around $56,000 to $60,000
Past crypto bear markets have seen significant drawdowns across the sector, and can take years for prices to recover.
Bitcoin is trading around $88,543 as of Friday; however, Moreno predicts that over the coming year, the bear market bottom will likely be in the $56,000 to $60,000 range, based on Bitcoin’s realized price and past performance.
“Historically, what happened in previous bear markets, you see the price coming down to what is called the realized price, which is basically the average price at which the holders of Bitcoin purchased their Bitcoin,” Moreno said.
“It deviates a lot to the upside in the bull market and then when there’s a bear market, that should be the, I would say maybe the base expectation for a bottom for a price bottom during a bear market,” he added.
Bear market drawdown less intense this time
A drop from Bitcoin’s all-time high to $56,000 represents a roughly 55% drawdown, which Moreno said could be seen as a positive, since it’s been much higher previously.
“If you want to see it in a positive way, from the all-time high, the drawdown is really not as high as we have had in previous bear markets when we have had drawdowns of 70%, 80%. This will be just like a 55% from the all-time high,” he said.
Related: Final nail in 4-year cycle? BTC ends year after halving in red
At the same time, Moreno argues that this bear market is already more stable because there have been no high-profile crypto-related collapses.
During the 2022 bear market, the Terra ecosystem collapsed in May, followed by the Celsius Network in June and FTX in November, sending shockwaves through the sector.
There are also large institutional players steadily accumulating crypto regularly, a bigger pool of traders and investors willing to step into the market, and more reliable companies and projects in the sector.
“Talking about demand again, there are other types of players now that buy more periodically. In previous bear markets, the demand was basically, you know contracting. I would say that structurally, we now have more like institutional or ETFs that don't sell, and also there's some buying there.”
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