Bitcoin could have ended its historic four-year cycle, signaling a yr of downside ahead, although widespread analysts expect an prolonged cycle resulting from regulatory tailwinds.
Bitcoin's (BTC) all-time high of $125,000 on October 6 could have signaled the height of the present four-year Bitcoin halving cycle, each when it comes to “price and time,” in response to Jurrien Timmer, director of worldwide macroeconomic research at asset management firm Fidelity.
“While I remain a secular bull on Bitcoin, I’m concerned that Bitcoin could have accomplished one other halving phase of the 4-year cycle,” Timmer wrote in a Thursday post on Support is at $65,000-$75,000.”
Source: Jurrien Timmer
The crypto market could see more upside potential resulting from fundamental regulatory tailwinds
Timmer's evaluation contradicts other crypto analysts who expect the growing variety of regulated crypto investment products to steer to an extended bull market cycle in 2026.
Notably, Tom Shaughnessy, co-founder of crypto research firm Delphi Digital, expects latest all-time highs for Bitcoin in 2026 after investor sentiment recovers following the crypto market's record $19 billion crash in early October.
“We are working on a one-time, catastrophic 10/10 liquidation event that brought the market to a halt,” Shaughnessy wrote in a Friday X post, adding:
“Once that’s resolved, we’ll hit $BTC’s ATHs in 2026 as prices move within the rubber band to reflect progress outside of 10/10.”
Shaughnessy said crypto market valuations can be driven by the industry's “fundamental progress,” including increasing implementations on Wall Street and regulatory developments.
Policy experts are also predicting a yr of serious progress in US cryptocurrency laws, a development that may lead to more institutional investment within the crypto space.
“I expect 2026 to be one other meaningful yr for crypto regulation, but it is going to look different than the last,” Cathy Yoon, general counsel at crypto research firm Temporal and Solana blockbuilding system Harmonic, told Cointelegraph.
“With the passage of stablecoin laws, the true impact will come from implementation – audits, disclosures and the way these assets are integrated into the payments and financial infrastructure,” she said.
Source: Santiment
However, investor social sentiment took a big hit earlier this week when Bitcoin fell below $85,000. Since then, pessimistic comments have dominated social media platforms, including X, Reddit and Telegram, in response to market research platform Santiment.
Meanwhile, the crypto industry's top-performing traders by return, tracked as “smart money” traders on Nansen's blockchain intelligence platform, are also betting on a short-term decline in most leading cryptocurrencies.
Smart money traders lead perpetual futures positions on hyperliquid. Source: Nansen
While smart money traders had net short positions on Bitcoin price $123 million, the identical cohort bet on the value rise of Ether (ETH) with cumulative net long positions price $475 million, Nansen data shows.
