(Bloomberg) — Bitcoin\u2019s rebound this week from the depths of despair below $60,000 has reignited a familiar Wall Street ritual: trying to call the bottom.<\/p>\n
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Analysts point to a growing list of signals that have accompanied past market lows. At the same time, some argue the coin\u2019s washout coincided with a broader shift in speculative appetite, as artificial-intelligence stocks and SpaceX\u2019s closely watched public debut became competing destinations for risk capital.<\/p>\n
The theory is difficult to prove, and the market remains far from an all-clear. Spot Bitcoin ETFs are still suffering heavy outflows, institutional demand remains weak and some analysts warn the token could yet experience another leg lower.<\/p>\n
Yet the search for signs of stabilization has intensified after Bitcoin\u2019s plunge to $59,100 last week. Historically, the token \u2013 now trading at $63,600 \u2014 has often begun carving out bottoms when pessimism is widespread, flows are deteriorating and investors struggle to identify a catalyst for recovery.<\/p>\n
For Geoffrey Kendrick, global head of digital-assets research at Standard Chartered, that process may already be underway.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we have now seen the low in crypto-asset prices for the cycle,\u201d Kendrick wrote in a note to clients.<\/p>\n
He cited two potential catalysts. The first is easing geopolitical tensions that could reduce pressure on oil prices and Treasury yields. The second is the possibility that the SpaceX IPO marks the end of a recent wave of ETF selling. Kendrick said some Bitcoin ETF holders may have sold positions to free up cash for the offering, helping fuel one of the sharpest stretches of outflows since the funds launched.<\/p>\n
Other analysts see evidence of a bottom forming in the market\u2019s internals. Bitcoin\u2019s drop left it trading just 9% above its realized price, or the average level at which coins last moved on-chain. According to CryptoQuant, the metric has historically approached realized price near major bear-market lows.<\/p>\n
Vetle Lunde at K33 Research points to another measure. More than half of Bitcoin\u2019s circulating supply is now held below its purchase price, a condition that has emerged near previous market bottoms as the pool of investors still sitting on profits \u2014 and therefore under pressure to sell \u2014 dwindles. Even so, Lunde cautioned that Bitcoin could still suffer a \u201cfinal leg lower\u201d before establishing a durable recovery.<\/p>\n
The market backdrop remains hostile. US spot Bitcoin ETFs have shed roughly $5.8 billion over the past month, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. CryptoQuant says US institutional demand has not only stalled but reversed into net selling at a historically unusual pace.<\/p>\n
In a sign of the tension facing bottom hunters, those same outflows support two competing interpretations. Bears see them as evidence that demand continues to deteriorate. Bulls argue they may ultimately come to mark the kind of washout that often accompanies market lows.<\/p>\n
The data also suggest the market has yet to experience the kind of capitulation that characterized previous crypto troughs. Investors realized losses on roughly 187,000 Bitcoin over the past 30 days, according to CryptoQuant. While substantial, that remains well below the scale seen during the aftermath of FTX\u2019s collapse in late 2022 \u2014 or even during another bout of selling earlier this year.<\/p>\n
That leaves investors weighing two competing narratives. One is that Bitcoin is approaching levels where selling pressure has largely run its course and valuations have become attractive relative to historical norms. The other is that demand remains too weak and ETF outflows too persistent to declare a definitive bottom.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe current price level should be interpreted as a valuation floor candidate, not a confirmed cycle bottom,\u201d CryptoQuant researchers wrote.<\/p>\n
(Updates prices.)<\/p>\n
Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek<\/p>\n
\u00a92026 Bloomberg L.P.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Bloomberg) — Bitcoin\u2019s rebound this week from the depths of despair below $60,000 has reignited a familiar Wall…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,3059,212851,971,61,212852,60,80],"class_list":["post-496775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-bitcoin","tag-bitcoin-etf","tag-bloomberg","tag-ie","tag-institutional-demand","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}