The Bitcoin Bear Market Is Officially Over

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Three things just flashed on the Bitcoin chart in the last 7 days that haven't happened together since the bull market began four years ago. And the last time that they did, Bitcoin ran 660% from $16,000 to $126,000 in 24 months.

[00:00:15]From the exact setup that we are looking at on the chart right now. Right now, Bitcoin is at the edge of a brand new bull market. As you can see behind me, it's up 35% in the last 3 months. It just hit $82,000 for the first time since January. and it's officially the best performing asset in the world since the Iran war broke out. But here's the thing, the bears are not done. There are also three reasons that every one of these signals could fail and we could still take out the lows. So, the market is sitting on what I'm calling the bears last stand. On one side of this line, you get the beginning of the bull market and on the other side, you get one more flush before it's over. And by the end of this video, you're going to know exactly which side we're on. I'm going to walk you through the three indicators that just flashed for the first time in four years. I'm going to lay out the bare case and the obstacles that are still in front of Bitcoin. And I'm going to show you the institutional move that just got dropped on top of all of it 12 hours ago, which could turn a constructive setup into a structural one. Let's get into it. So, before we go anywhere, we have to define our terms.

[00:01:13]What actually marks the start of a Bitcoin bull market with stocks? The answer is very easy. A bull market is confirmed when the index rises 20% off the low. It's very clean and it's agreed upon, but Bitcoin doesn't work that way.

[00:01:25]Bitcoin is up over 35% from its low at $60,000. And almost nobody is calling this a bull market yet. That's because Bitcoin's bull and bear cycles are defined by something larger and more specific than a percentage move. They are defined by a specific cluster of onchain and technical levels, which throughout Bitcoin's entire history have separated downtrends from uptrends with stunning consistency. And as I mentioned, three of those levels just got reclaimed in the last 7 days. and one of them just got reclaimed for the first time in four years. So indicator number one, this is the 50, 100 day, and 200 day moving averages. And what just happened in the last week is the 50-day crossed above the 100 day. Now, that sounds like a small thing, but it's not.

[00:02:08]It's a signal that bullish momentum is building from the bottom. Short-term price action is now outpacing the longerterm trend, which means that the fuel is gathering at the base of the chart. You can see it. I've marked it here with the red arrow. But the more important signal is what comes next. And that is when the 50-day moving average crosses above the 200 day moving average. That is what we call the golden cross. And throughout Bitcoin's entire price history, the golden cross has indicated the start of a brand new bull market every single time. The last time that the 50-day crossed above the 100 day, like it just did this week, it was only 3 weeks before it hit the golden cross. Three weeks. The 50-day is currently less than $10,000 away from crossing the 200 day. So, we're not there yet, but we are climbing. And here's the part that most people are missing. Bitcoin spot price right now is within $1,700 of crossing above the 200 day moving average itself. And the last time that happened in 2024, Bitcoin's downtrend ended. And the time before that in 2022, it was the first sign of the bare market coming to a close, which then got fully confirmed by the golden cross a couple of weeks later. We are right now just a few hundred away from one of the most important technical levels on the entire Bitcoin chart this cycle. So that's indicator number one.

[00:03:25]Now I want to tell you about indicator number two because this is the one that I think is the most underrated of the three. Most people are looking at the moving averages because they're easy to chart and they're pretty easy to understand, but they're not paying attention to something a little bit more technical. What just happened on chain?

[00:03:41]This is indicator number two, the short-term holder cost basis. Now, stay with me. The short-term holder cost basis sits at $79,100 right now, and the true market mean sits at $78,200.

[00:03:54]Bitcoin is trading above both for the first time in four years. Now, let me explain why this matters. Because if you're new here, you might not know what I'm even talking about or what you're looking at. The short-term holder cost basis just means the average purchase price of every coin held by an investor who has owned it for less than 155 days.

[00:04:13]These are the people who begin entering Bitcoin during bull markets. Throughout Bitcoin's entire history, this single line on the chart has acted as the most reliable separator between bull markets and bare markets that exists. When Bitcoin trades above the short-term holder cost basis, the average recent buyer is in profit. And when the average recent buyer is in profit, they hold.

[00:04:34]They don't panic sell. They become the buyer of dips instead of the seller of rips. So the reflexive pressure on Bitcoin's price flips from negative to positive. Think about it this way. When Bitcoin trades below, the average purchase price of the short-term holder, the inverse, happens. Every recent buyer is underwater. So every bounce is a chance to get out at break even. And supply hits the market on every single time we push higher. But when that trade reverses, recent buyers hold, they buy more and they drive the price up further. Now, here's the part that you cannot miss. During the last bare market in 2022, the moment that Bitcoin crossed above the short-term holder cost basis, that was the signal that confirmed the end of the bare market and the beginning of the next bull. Not the having or an ETF, that single onchain level. And it just happened today for the first time in four years. This is not a small thing. It's the thing that flipped the entire market structure back in 2022. If Bitcoin holds above this level for another several days and even the next few weeks, in all likelihood, we've officially entered into a new bull market. The cohort of buyers who control short-term price action just went from underwater to profitable in a single move. So, that's indicator number two.

[00:05:45]Now, for indicator number three, the ETF cost basis. This is the final boss. The ETF cost basis sits at $83,11.

[00:05:54]That's the average price that every single dollar that has flowed into a spot Bitcoin ETF since launch was acquired at. And as I'm recording this, Bitcoin is sitting roughly $1,000 underneath that number. And it's approaching it fast. Now, I want you to think about what a clean break above this level actually means. Think about the ETF investor cohort for a second.

[00:06:14]They've been the dominant buyer throughout this entire Bitcoin cycle.

[00:06:17]Black Rockck's IBIT alone holds $812,000 Bitcoin and cumulative net inflows since the ETFs launched in January of 2024 are sitting at almost $60 billion. In fact, we just registered the strongest month of ETF inflows since October of last year. So, these investors have been some of the most reliable flows for two straight years. And right now, almost all of them are underwater. Their average position is in the red. But that changes the moment Bitcoin closes above $83,1001.

[00:06:47]When the marginal buyer goes from losing money to making money, the buying behavior accelerates, which is the exact dynamic I explained just a moment ago with short-term holders. Allocators who paused at a loss come back and advisers who were getting phone calls about the draw down stop getting them. The single most powerful demand cohort in Bitcoin history flips from defense to offense.

[00:07:07]That is the positive reflexivity loop.

[00:07:08]That is the kind of structural force that doesn't just push Bitcoin up, it pulls it up. And here's the kicker. The ETF cost basis at $83,11 is sitting almost exactly on top of the 200 day moving average at $83,177.

[00:07:24]So, it all comes full circle. When Bitcoin reclaims this level, and I'm saying when, not if, given everything else converging, it doesn't reclaim one technical level. It reclaims two of the most important levels on the chart at the same time. And historically, flipping these levels is the line in the sand between bears and bulls. That's indicator number three. Now, before I get to the bare case, because I'm going to give you the bear case, I have to tell you something that landed on top of all of this just hours ago before I sat down to record. Because if these three indicators are the technical setup, this is the structural piece that turns a setup into something much bigger. A few hours ago, Bloomberg broke the news that Morgan Stanley is launching spot Bitcoin trading on Erade. And this is happening just a couple of weeks after Morgan Stanley launched its own Bitcoin ETF MSBT. It launched a couple of weeks ago at a 0.14% expense ratio, which was the cheapest in the entire US spot Bitcoin ETF market. And they did the same with their new product. Its fee is only 50 basis points per trade, which is lower than Coinbase, lower than Robin Hood.

[00:08:23]And it directly undercuts Tur Schwab, who just a couple of weeks ago undercut Coinbase at 75 basis points to launch their own spot Bitcoin trading. Morgan Stanley is a $1.5 trillion bank. Erade has 8.6 million clients, and this pilot is live now, and all 8.6 million customers get access by the end of this year. Morgan Stanley's spot Bitcoin ETF has already pulled in 163 million in inflows with zero outflows over the last couple of weeks. So, I want to hammer this in. Morgan Stanley is going to war for the right to onboard the next 10 million American Bitcoiners, and they're willing to compress their own margins to do it. This is what we call the institutional flywheel. The plumbing is being laid. The fee compression that is happening in Tradfi Bitcoin right now is identical to the fee compression that happened in Bitcoin ETFs in the months before they launched. By the time the next bull market is in full swing, just like we saw in 2024, it is going to be dirt cheap to buy Bitcoin in any brokerage account in America. That is a major structural tailwind. It's not noise. That is infrastructure being built directly in front of us. while the price is sitting just a breath away from confirming the bull market. Now, at this point, I know what some of you are thinking. You're probably thinking, "Joe, this all sounds great, but I've heard this song before. Every time Bitcoin rallies, somebody calls the bottom, including you. Why is this time different?" Well, that's the right question, and I want to give you a real answer. Here are the three reasons this could still fail. Reason number one, we have seen failed breakouts above the 200 day moving average before. In August of 2023, July and August of 2024, and in March of last year, Bitcoin has rallied up into the 200 day moving average cloud, gotten rejected, and produced new lows multiple times in the last 2 years.

[00:10:04]And the setup we have right now is not the first time the chart has shown this.

[00:10:08]It's just the first time since the bare market that began in November. Reason number two is seasonality. The month of May tends to be mixed in Bitcoin bare markets. June and July are slow, and August and September have been the weakest months in Bitcoin bare markets on record, frequently retracing most or all of the prior Q2 upside. So, if you are positioning yourself purely on the chart that's in front of you today, you have to acknowledge that the calendar hasn't been too kind to bullish positioning at this exact moment in past cycles. And reason three is the Iran war. I broke this down in detail in yesterday's video on the oil shock and what it means for the global economy.

[00:10:43]Basically, if the war continues raging on, oil prices stay elevated, demand destruction spreads, and we slide into an inflationary recession. And in that moment, the Fed will get forced to print, asset prices will initially sell off hard, and Bitcoin will not be spared in the first leg of that move. So, if the war worsens rather than deescalating, you'll see it in markets immediately. And that is a real risk to Bitcoin entering into a new bull market on the timeline that this chart is suggesting. Now, I want to be honest with you. I think Bitcoin's bare market is over. I think the lows are in at $60,000 and I think that the data is telling you that something has shifted.

[00:11:17]But I'm not going to sit here and pretend that the path from here is going to be linear because nothing about Bitcoin ever has been. Now, drop a comment below. What's the one indicator from this video that you want me to do a full deep dive on next? The short-term holder cost basis, golden cross, or the ETF cost basis, or all three. Whichever one gets the most votes is the next breakdown. And real quick, if you're watching this and you're getting value from it, hit the join button down below to support the channel and become a member. Members get every video 24 hours before it goes public. So, you're either watching this right now because you're already a member, in which case, thank you, or you're watching this and you got it 24 hours later than the people who joined. You know what to do. Now, let me show you the receipts on why I think this time the bullish setup actually has the conditions to hold. First and foremost, the macro is changing. During the last bull market, the macro environment wasn't actually supportive of Bitcoin. If you'll recall, the Fed had hiked interest rates all the way to five and a half percent. liquidity conditions were fighting it the entire way up. But this is no longer true. As you can see here, the ISM manufacturing PMI is approaching 50. And Bitcoin has never had a complete bull market while the PMI was below 50. It always follows the business cycle, not the 4-year having cycle, which is a topic for another video. And the business cycle is turning. So, as it continues accelerating, the appetite for risk on assets returns in force. Also, the volatility is structural. Bitcoin's weekly RSI has only been below 30 and back above 50 four times in its entire history. And every single one of those times, the bottom was in. It just did that again. As you can see on this chart right here, the bounce that Bitcoin has had off the lows has also been quite long. Bitcoin has never made a low after a bounce that lasted more than 70 days from low to high. And currently, we are 87 days from the low set back in February at $60,000. So unless this time is different, and that's the most expensive phrase in markets, the cycle low is in. Derivative positioning is also short. Perpetual funding remains negative, which means that traders are paying to short this rally. That's called a wall of worry. And rallies that climb a wall of worry are the cleanest rallies in markets. Every short that gets squeezed out adds rocket fuel to the move. And on top of all of that, you have the 28day stable coin supply rate of change flipping positive, which historically has been one of the most reliable precursors to price appreciation in all of Bitcoin. So, here's what most people miss. The bare case rests on one thing, which is that this breakout fails like it has before.

[00:13:38]But the bull case rests on five different forces converging on the same conclusion at the same time. Now, here is where it actually means something for you. So, if you've been waiting on the sidelines for a confirmed signal, the signal you're already waiting for is the close above 83K. That is the moment that everything in this video gets locked in.

[00:13:56]That's the moment that the 50-day moving average will be on a clear path to crossing the 200 day. And that is the moment that the marginal ETF buyer will be back in profit. The 200 day moving average will be reclaimed, and the institutional bid stops climbing a wall of worry and starts setting the floor.

[00:14:12]You could think of this as the bear's last stand. The bear's first line of defense was $78,000 in line with the short-term holder cost basis. That line is now broken. Their second line of defense is the 200 day moving average at $83,000.

[00:14:25]That is where we are right now. And if we lose that, well, if we lose it on the bullish side, the bear's last stand is over. So, let me bring this home. Three bullish Bitcoin indicators just flashed for the first time in four years. The 50-day moving average crossed above the 100 day. The short-term holder cost basis got reclaimed and the ETF cost basis is one good candle away. All three of these indicators point to a bull market that is about to be confirmed. On top of that, Morgan Stanley just declared a price war on every Bitcoin exchange in America at the exact moment that the chart is setting up to break.

[00:14:56]The macro picture is turning, the volatility is reset, and derivatives are short. The bare case is one rejection, but the bull case is five forces convergent. Yesterday, I broke down the oil shock and why it could be a real obstacle in front of all of this. That's the other side of this same coin, and you should watch that one next. I'll see you over there. Hit the join button down below to support the channel and become a member and book a one-on-one session with me at the link in the description.

[00:15:20]I'll see you in the next one.