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Bitcoin price appears to be off to a superb start, having spent a lot of the latest 12 months above the psychological $90,000 mark. While the leading cryptocurrency's performance has slowed in recent days, there is obvious bullish intent evident available in the market thus far in 2026.
Now, this recent optimism somewhat contradicts recent predictions that Bitcoin price may very well be at first of a bear market. This begs the query: could the bull market be about to restart or is the worth of BTC just experiencing a recovery rally?
BTC’s recent rally is merely a recovery rally for the bear market – analyst
In a January 9 post on the platform, the market expert based his answer on each on-chain and technical price data.
First, Maartunn admitted that the recent increase would only occur because Bitcoin price found support across the realized ETF price of $85,000. This price level represents the typical cost basis of BTC ETF investors, and as expected, buyers defended their positions – causing the worth to rise.
This phenomenon is highlighted by one other on-chain metric, the Coinbase Premium Gap, which measures the difference between the worth of Bitcoin on Coinbase and global exchanges. According to Maartunn, the metric began rising right after New Year's Eve, indicating renewed buying activity from U.S. investors.
Additionally, spot exchange-traded funds saw strong capital inflows days after this Coinbase Premium Gap surge. “This looks more like a strategic purchase/portfolio rebalancing (latest quarter, latest 12 months) than emotional FOMO,” Maartunn added.
Source: @JA_Maartun on X
However, the crypto analyst identified that through the rally, Bitcoin price only climbed to a high of $94,000 before facing rejection. Essentially, this implies that the flagship cryptocurrency doesn’t have the bullish strength to interrupt through this resistance.
Additionally, Maartunn mentioned that Bitcoin remains to be trading below key on-chain levels reminiscent of realized price for short-term holders and realized price for whales, each of which act as significant overhead resistance.
The on-chain analyst noted that on-chain observations suggest that this latest upswing is just a bear market recovery rally and never a trend continuation – though the worth is up around 10%. Only a transparent breakout and sustained close above the $94,000 level would indicate Bitcoin price's strong intention to rebuild a bullish structure, Martunn concluded.
Bitcoin price at a look
As of this writing, the worth of BTC is at $90,360, reflecting a decline of virtually 1% within the last 24 hours.
The price of BTC within the day by day timeframe | Source: BTCUSDT chart on TradingView
Featured image from iStock, chart from TradingView
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