Three things just happened simultaneously to Bitcoin that have only occurred together at the exact bottom of every bear market in this asset’s history. In 2015, 2019, 2022 and now, in the summer of 2026.
The monthly RSI just hit its second lowest level in 17 years. Bitcoin miners have capitulated, a signal that has marked the floor of every cycle without exception. And for the first time this cycle, more than half of all Bitcoin in existence is underwater. Three signals, one alignment. The last time they lined up like this, the price that followed changed the financial lives of everyone who was paying attention.
Why Bitcoin Fell While Stocks Rose
The confusion most investors feel right now is understandable. The stock market has been printing record highs while Bitcoin bled 52% from its peak over eight months. If they are both risk assets, how are they moving in opposite directions?
The answer is that Bitcoin does not always follow stocks. It moves on its own four-year rhythm, a cycle that has repeated since the asset was created. Right now, stocks are in the late innings of a bull market while Bitcoin is in the final stage of a bear. Both things are true at once.
The selloff has two engines. The first is the mechanical cycle, where late leverage positions get flushed and sentiment collapses and everyone declares Bitcoin dead. It happens every time. The second engine is what made this particular drawdown deeper than prior cycles: artificial intelligence. Since April, memory chip ETFs pulled in $12.7 billion while Bitcoin ETFs bled over $2 billion. That is the rotation in black and white. People sold Bitcoin to buy AI stocks. Capital that rotates out eventually rotates back in.
Six On-Chain Signals Pointing to a Bottom
The on-chain data is telling a story the price alone does not capture. The MVRV-Z score sits at 0.41, deep in the accumulation zone. Long-term holders, wallets that have survived every previous bear market, just posted their largest 30-day accumulation on record. Even the most patient, most experienced money in this asset is buying more aggressively right now than at any point in Bitcoin’s history.
Bitcoin swept the low below its 200-week moving average near $60,000 and closed the week back above it. That sweep and reclaim, combined with a 12% bounce off the lows, is textbook behaviour for a cycle bottom in the process of forming.
The Macro Setup Is Starting to Align
The Iran war is reportedly winding down. Oil has crashed 25% in a month. The Strait of Hormuz is reopening. The war was the primary engine behind inflation, and as energy prices fall, inflation cools. The moment inflation cools, rate hike expectations flip to rate cut expectations. And the moment safe assets stop paying a real return, capital comes flooding back into Bitcoin.
The US government cannot afford its own debt at current rates indefinitely. The arithmetic eventually forces rates lower, not because the Fed chooses generosity but because the math leaves no other option. When that happens, the macro vice that has compressed Bitcoin for eight months releases.
The Price Targets
Bitcoin at $150,000 by this time next year. Bitcoin at $215,000 by the end of the next cycle. Those are the targets based on the macro setup, the on-chain data and the historical pattern of every prior cycle recovery.
Could there be one more leg lower? Absolutely. Around 900 days post-halving is where prior bear markets have found their final low, pointing toward October or November. If Bitcoin loses $59,000 on a weekly close, the next real floor sits in the mid-$50,000 range. In a worst-case scenario mirroring 2022, the mid-$40,000 range is possible.
But here is the asymmetry. Bitcoin is already down 51% from its high. Even in the bear case, the downside from here is limited. The upside, based on every prior cycle, is not.
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