Is Bitcoin Bear Market Ending? Two Analysts Clash

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Bitcoin is trading at $74,025. Half the market sees a buying opportunity. The other half sees a temporary stop on the way to $30,000. People speak of it in the drawing room as if it were gossip about a neighbor’s affair with the stock market- tiresome, but impossible to ignore.

Both sides have real data behind them, the sort of data that would make a village magistrate nod and then sigh for the weather.

The Bear Case: The Bottom Has Not Yet Spoken Its Last Word

CryptoQuant published analysis this week showing Bitcoin’s MVRV Z-score has not entered negative territory. Every single bear market bottom in Bitcoin’s history has required it to go below zero. Right now it sits at 0.5, as if the town clock forgot to strike thirteen and merely lingered at half past.

Analyst Benjamin Cowen put out a bear framework on April 12 pointing to a 70% correction from the $126,000 October peak, implying a floor around $37,000-$38,000. CryptoQuant’s own target: $55,000-$60,000 by December 2026, followed by a two-year accumulation before the next halving. It sounds theoretical, but it wears a wool coat and uses a cane, which makes it feel almost respectable.

Their argument is simple. The bear market has not finished its work yet, and one wonders who set the bear to work and what the bear did with the rent money.

The Bull Case: The Debt Book Changes the Ledger

Analyst Michaël van de Poppe published a different framework today, as if two cousins had shown up with entirely opposite recipes for soup.

His sigma analysis of every Bitcoin cycle shows bull markets and bear markets are getting weaker symmetrically. The 2024/2025 bull peaked at just +1.5 sigma. The bear has already hit -1.5 sigma-the very level that historically marks the end of the correction, like a plan that finally gives up pretending to be clever.

“The sigma-debt has already been paid off in the recent correction,” he wrote. The $30,000 thesis, he argues, applies the wrong historical framework to a cycle that has already structurally changed.

Twelve months after reaching this sigma level, Bitcoin has historically averaged gains of 100-140%, which sounds like a joke told by a banker with a twinkle in his eye.

James Lavish, co-manager of the Bitcoin Opportunity Fund and a 30-year Wall Street veteran, presented a different angle on Milk Road, almost a confession of faith in the arithmetic of the country’s debt.

His argument has nothing to do with charts. The US carries $39 trillion in debt heading toward $100 trillion by the mid-2030s. There are four ways to manage it-cut spending, raise taxes, default, or print money.

“They have no choice but to come in with fire hoses of liquidity,” Lavish said.

More money in the system means higher asset prices. It always has. He expects Bitcoin near $125,000 by year end and $150,000 next year, which sounds like a forecast stitched together from the margins of a ledger and a bedtime story.

What the Market Is Doing Right Now

Bitcoin sits at $74,025, down 0.25% in 24 hours. The altcoin fear and greed index has been below 10 for longer than any period in history, which is the sort of statistic that makes even a sensible person pause to brood over his pension.

Two analytical frameworks. Two completely different conclusions. The data is real on both sides- which makes the next move matter more than most, like a clumsy register in a theater waiting for the curtain to fall.

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2026-04-15 16:22