According to recent study from Kaiko study, Bitcoin’s steep decline at the beginning of the month might indicate a crucial “halfway point” in the current bear market.
According to TradingView statistics, BitcoinBTCUSD dropped to $59,930 on Friday, the lowest level since October 2024 and prior to US President Donald Trump’s reelection.
The drop indicates that the market has left the post-halving euphoria and entered what Kaiko called a historically normal bear market phase, which lasts for about a year until a new accumulation phase starts.
According to a research paper Kaiko shared with Cointelegraph on Monday, the 32% decline in Bitcoin was the biggest since the 2024 halving and could be the “halfway point” of the current bear market.
“Comparative performance across tokens and on-chain metrics analysis suggest a market reaching important technical support levels that will determine if the four-year cycle structure remains intact,” Kaiko stated.
A 30% decline in the total spot cryptocurrency trading volume across the top 10 centralized exchanges, from about $1 trillion in October 2025 to $700 billion in November, was one of the new onchain negative market indicators that Kaiko’s study noted.
Meanwhile, open interest in combined Bitcoin and Ether (ETH) futures fell 14% over the last week, from $29 billion to $25 billion, which Kaiko claimed was a result of continued deleveraging.
Although since the start of the year, Bitcoin has reverted to the normal four-year halving cycle, it is difficult to assess how deep the current bear market is since “many triggers that fuelled BTC’s surge over $126,000 are still in effect,” according to Shawn Young, principal analyst of MEXC Research.
Young added that Bitcoin might be starting a new cycle that will not be evident for another year. “With oversold indications emerging on various timeframes, the comeback talk around BTC is more a question of when, not if,” he said.
Whether the decline to $60,000 marks the bottom of the current bear market is the main query for investors. The 200-week moving average for Bitcoin, which has traditionally served as long-term support, is around where the level is.
According to Nicolai Sondergaard, research analyst at the crypto intelligence platform Nansen, Cointelegraph could expect increased market volatility in the absence of crypto-specific market drivers.
Having said that, it is still difficult to determine whether this indicates a return to the traditional 4-year cycle. I have seen a lot of well-known space personalities voice their opinions, but I have also seen a lot of people who disagree.
In contrast to prior negative market cycles, Kaiko noted that the 52% retracement from Bitcoin’s previous all-time high was “unusually thin.”
According to Kaiko, a retracement of 60% to 68% would “match more closely” with previous drawdowns, indicating a Bitcoin cycle bottom of between $40,000 and $50,000.
However, some market players contend that $60,000 already represented a local low. Using a record low in investor sentiment and a crucial low in the Relative Strength Index, which fell to levels last seen in 2018 and 2020, analyst and MN Capital founder Michaël van de Poppe referred to the drop below $60,000 as the local market bottom for the price of Bitcoin.
