Bitcoin may have already hit its bear market bottom, or it could see one final decline as its historical four-year cycle progresses, according to Samir Kerbage, chief investment officer at crypto asset manager Hashdex.
The assessment comes as Bitcoin fell below $70,000 on Friday, extending a selloff that has pushed the asset roughly 45% below its October 2025 peak of approximately $126,000.
Kerbage said Bitcoin’s current cycle has followed a familiar historical pattern, although its price swings have been considerably smaller than in previous cycles.
“Bitcoin sits 35% below its high and 37% above the June low, so either June was the bottom, earlier and shallower than any before it, or bitcoin still has a last leg to run,” Kerbage wrote in research circulated by Hashdex.
The figures reflect an earlier market snapshot. With Bitcoin trading near $69,000 on Friday, the asset was approximately 17% above its June low of $59,000.
Kerbage said Bitcoin fell 84% and 83% from peak to trough during its first two major cycles, and 77% during the third. The current cycle’s deepest drawdown has been approximately 53%, reached in June.
Returns between successive cycle peaks have also moderated, declining from 1,598% to 250% and then 85%, he said.
Kerbage cited declining volatility as another sign of a maturing market. Bitcoin’s annualized volatility averaged roughly 80% during its first two cycles, compared with 53% in the third and approximately 44% in the current cycle.
He also noted that the volatility gap between Bitcoin and gold has narrowed. According to his analysis, Bitcoin was nearly ten times as volatile as gold in 2017, compared with roughly twice as volatile in 2025 and 1.5 times as volatile in 2026.
Kerbage also cited growing stablecoin adoption and tokenization as evidence that the underlying crypto market continues to expand despite the downturn.
He said the number of Brazilian wallets holding at least $10,000 in stablecoins has risen 347% since July 2024, while global stablecoin transaction volume reached $1.79 trillion in June, up 125% from a year earlier.
Figures cited by Kerbage show that Visa’s stablecoin settlement volume increased tenfold over the past year.
The analysis follows Hashdex’s earlier assessment that institutional participation is changing Bitcoin’s historical market dynamics and could moderate the sharp rallies and corrections seen in previous cycles.
