I’m going to do something different today because really over the long term I’m bullish on Bitcoin but that doesn’t mean there are times where bearishness will take over and the reality is, as investors we should always be willing to challenge our own pre-conceived notions and say to ourselves “what if I’m wrong?”

Because this is how it feels for a lot of people right now…

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So in that spirit I’m I’m going to give you the bear case for Bitcoin in 2026. The real one. Not the watered-down version. The one that keeps serious people up at night.

Then I’m going to give you the bull case. The one that says this year could produce new all-time highs.

And both arguments are backed by data. Both have credible people behind them. And both could be right... just at different times.

The difference between them is where our opportunity lies.

So grab a drink. This one matters.

Bitcoin has followed a four-year cycle with almost eerie precision since its inception.

The pattern goes like this:

Step 1: Have a halving. Step 2: Price runs up for 12-18 months. Step 3: Enter a bear market that lasts for 12 -18 months. Matt Hougan actually said that the average bear market lasts for about 13 months. Step 4: Experience 70-85% price drawdown. Step 5: Repeat.

The numbers are brutal.

2014 peak to 2015 bottom: 85% drawdown. 2017 peak to 2018 bottom: 84%. 2021 peak to 2022 bottom: 78%.2

Now look at where we are. Bitcoin peaked at $126,198 on October 6, 2025. That was 1,050 days from the November 2022 bottom... almost exactly the same 1,064-day pattern that’s played out in prior cycles.

As of today, February 12, we’re sitting at roughly $68,000 which is a 46% decline.

If the cycle holds? The bottom lands somewhere around September or October 2026. And if Bitcoin follows the average 80% drawdown from prior bear markets, that puts a potential floor around $25,000 to $37,500.

Benjamin Cowen, one of the most respected cycle analysts in crypto, warned that “any bounce could be temporary” and suggested the market won’t bottom until October 2026.

Steven McClurg, CEO of Canary Capital, told CNBC this week he expects $50,000 by summer.

Standard Chartered just slashed their year-end target to $100,000 and warned Bitcoin could hit $50,000 first which by the way is their THIRD downward revision in three months.

They started at $300,000.

And Kaiko Research published data showing stablecoin dominance has surged to 10.3% of total crypto market cap. That’s ABOVE the levels seen during the FTX collapse. They say we’re at the “halfway point” of this bear market.

The four-year cycle believers aren’t dumb. They’re not making this up. The pattern has held for 16 years.

Although I still believe that this has only happened 4 times so far which is not enough to be statistically significant but enough people do believe it to have significant effects on price so it may break at some point but according to the bears it may not be this time and so far it looks like that view is holding a lot of water.

And that brings us to the second part of the bear case... one that might matter even more than the four-year cycle.

Grayscale dropped a bombshell report on February 10 that through their analysis Bitcoin trades like a tech stock, not digital gold.

When high-growth software stocks sold off in early February, Bitcoin fell in near lockstep. Not with gold. Not as a safe haven. With the Nasdaq.

Zach Pandl, Grayscale’s head of research, put it plainly: “Investing in bitcoin today is fundamentally a bet on adoption.” Until Bitcoin is widely accepted as a global monetary asset, its price will keep rising and falling with growth-oriented portfolios.

Not as a hedge during market stress.

Although I’m less inclined to believe this based upon info in this previous article titled “How The Hell Do We Get Out of This Bear Market” where during the banking crisis of 2023 we saw Bitcoin jump up 40% in value from it’s lows.

But I digress…

Tech is in trouble.

The AI bubble correction is dragging down valuations across the sector.

Microsoft dropped 10%.

The Nasdaq has been bleeding.

Hell, I just got an alert about Apple’s stock falling 5%.

And because Bitcoin now shows a correlation of over 0.8 with the Nasdaq 100 during risk-off periods, every tech selloff drags Bitcoin down with it.

Barry Bannister, chief equity strategist at Stifel, said it bluntly on CNBC: “Bitcoin is not digital gold. It really behaves more like a high-liquidity-driven speculative financial instrument, more like a big tech stock.”

Deutsche Bank’s Marion Laboure added that the divergence between Bitcoin and gold “suggests that Bitcoin is no longer acting as digital gold.” While gold surged to record highs... up 23% year-to-date in 2026... Bitcoin cratered 46%.

This isn’t just an abstract debate. It has real implications. If people view Bitcoin as a tech stock, then it’s subject to tech-stock dynamics which means AI valuation corrections, interest rate sensitivity, liquidity cycles, and institutional portfolio rebalancing. A

nd right now, all of those dynamics point down.

The crypto market has lost $2 trillion in value since October 2025. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs have seen $5.7 billion in outflows since November.

CryptoQuant said that institutional demand has “reversed materially”... noting that U.S. ETFs purchased 46,000 Bitcoin this time last year but are net sellers in 2026.

That’s the bear case. It’s real. It’s data-driven. And it deserves your respect and for the true believers like me, I view it as an opportunity.

Because here’s why today’s newsletter matters more than most. The book doesn’t just give you the bull case. It gives you the complete framework... every pillar, every risk, every scenario... so YOU can decide what to do when Wall Street can’t agree with itself.

I wrote this book for moments exactly like this one. When the noise is loudest and the signal is hardest to find.

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What you get:

This isn’t about convincing you to buy Bitcoin. It’s about giving you the information to make your own informed decision.

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Man does it hurt to be bearish so now let’s flip the script and talk about the signals that we may actually be at the bottom of the bear market.

First off there is investor sentiment on the Crypto Fear & Greed Index hit 5 on February 11th, 2026.

That’s low.

Lower than the FTX collapse in 2022, which bottomed at 6.

Lower than the COVID crash in March 2020.

Lower than the 2018 bear market bottom.

The fear is palpable.

Every single time the Fear & Greed Index has dropped into single digits, it has marked a generational buying opportunity.

March 2020: Index hit single digits during the COVID crash. Bitcoin was trading under $4,000. What followed? An 1,800% rally to $69,000.

June 2022: Index hit 6 during the FTX/Luna collapse. Bitcoin was at $17,500. What followed? A 620% rally to $126,000.

2018 bear market: Index reached extreme fear territory. Bitcoin was around $3,200. What followed? The entire 2020-2021 bull cycle.

If the 4 year cycle is a consistent pattern the Fear and Greed Index should also get similar respect.

Not because fear is a magic indicator... but because of what it represents.

Seller exhaustion.

When the Fear & Greed Index is at 5, it means that a lot of people who wanted to sell have already done so.

What’s left? The holders. The builders. The institutions that didn’t leave.

And they didn’t leave.

Goldman Sachs disclosed $2.36 billion in crypto exposure in their Q4 filing... UP 15% quarter over quarter despite a 46% price decline in price.

Wells Fargo now accepts Bitcoin ETF shares as collateral for credit lines treating Bitcoin with the same financial utility as blue-chip securities.

BlackRock’s IBIT holds $54 billion in assets under management.

Total Bitcoin held in ETFs dropped only 6% (from 1.37 million to 1.29 million BTC) while the price dropped 46%.

Price down 46%. ETF holdings down 6%.

The infrastructure didn’t leave. The conviction didn’t leave. The price left.

In fact J.P. Morgan just published a note saying they’re “positive on crypto markets for 2026” expecting institutional flows, not retail, to drive a rebound.

Bernstein’s Gautam Chhugani called this the “weakest bear market in Bitcoin’s history” and maintained a $150,000 target.

Bitwise predicted Bitcoin will break the four-year cycle and set new all-time highs in 2026.

And then there’s the math that never changes. 19.99 million Bitcoin exist right now. The 20 millionth gets mined next month... in March 2026. After that, only 1 million Bitcoin will ever be created. And it’ll take 115 years to mine them.

The scarcity isn’t a theory. It’s mathematics. And it doesn’t care about our four-year cycle.

Tom Lee at Fundstrat still expects new all-time highs, although he’s always a mega bull and the man could go through a hurricane and he’d probably talk about how nice the clouds are and personally I love him for that.

Anyway he spoke at Hong Kong Consensus this week and called the current environment a “mini winter”... an opportunity, not a death sentence.

Swissquote’s analysis gives a 70% probability that Bitcoin touches a new all-time high at least once during 2026, driven by positive drift in volatility models.

Also there’s something else interesting happening with another macro chart called the ISM PMI (Institute for Supply Management Purchasing Managers' Index) a proxy for the business cycle that Bitcoin also closely tracks reached 52.6 in January.

Historically, when this indicator turns upward after contraction, Bitcoin enters a bullish phase.

It’s been in contraction for over two years so if this thesis is correct, then the spring has been coiling for a bit.

If the bull case plays out, Bitcoin doesn’t just recover.

It explodes from a base of maximum fear into a new price discovery phase powered by institutional infrastructure that didn’t exist in any prior cycle.

So here you are. Two completely credible cases. Two completely different outcomes. Same year.

The bears say the four-year cycle is intact, Bitcoin trades like a tech stock in a tech correction, and we’re headed to $37,000-$50,000 by summer or fall.

The bulls say the Fear & Greed Index just flashed its most powerful buy signal in history, institutional infrastructure is permanent, and the weakest bear market ever is the setup for new all-time highs.

But here’s the deal… all indicators are right until they’re wrong but my conviction in Bitcoin hasn’t moved a single iota.

I think the bears are right about the short-term pain because Bitcoin IS trading like a tech stock right now and the correlation is undeniable.

Also the four-year cycle has 16 years of data and many acolytes behind it.

But I think the bulls are right about where this ends. Because here’s what’s different this time... and I don’t say that lightly.

The ETFs exist. The institutional plumbing exists.

Wells Fargo is using Bitcoin as collateral. Goldman Sachs is ADDING exposure during a 46% drawdown. That has never happened in any prior bear market. Ever.

The bear market is real. But the infrastructure underneath it is new as well and that infrastructure becomes a launchpad to the next bull market.

There are only 21 million Bitcoin. That’s true whether the price is $68,000 or $37,000 or $150,000.

Stay sharp. Stay patient. And stay in the game.

P.S. If you haven’t ordered “The Million Dollar Bitcoin” yet, do it now. This newsletter gives you headlines. The book gives you the complete thesis. Available on Amazon right now. Start reading today when it can still change your tomorrow, not “someday.”