Is The Bitcoin Bull Run Over? Top Analyst Predicts What’s Next

Crypto analyst Bob Loukas has released a new video analysis titled “No Bull.” In the video, Loukas delves into the current state of the Bitcoin market, addressing growing concerns about the possibility of a canceled bull run.

Loukas begins by acknowledging the prolonged period of consolidation for the Bitcoin price. He senses that “there is now some fear creeping into the market,” partly due to factors such as the Bitcoin ETF being “out for quite some time” and the halving having “come and go,” without leading to significant upward price movement.

Is The Bitcoin Bull Run Over?

Loukas observes that while traditional markets are performing robustly—with “the stock market making all-time highs seemingly every week” and “even gold making big all-time highs”—Bitcoin continues to “languish,” and altcoins are “pretty much dying a slow death.” He notes that “the only thing out there that’s really working is the really speculative memecoins,” contributing to negative sentiment in the crypto space.

However, he considers this development to be “kind of normal,” emphasizing that despite these challenges, Bitcoin remains “close to the all-time highs from the prior cycle.” Discussing the eight months of consolidation in Bitcoin’s price, Loukas interprets this period as a bullish sign. “Eight months of consolidation is actually pretty bullish if the timing is right in the four-year cycle. Sentiment is right, it’s been reset; fundamentals, macro, I think they all look right,” he states.

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Loukas further highlights that the market is “23 months in” since the lows of the last cycle in November 2022, “just shy of a 24-month or 2-year anniversary of this cycle,” which is due to conclude around November-December 2026. He acknowledges the “quite a bit of fear that’s sort of crept into this market” following a “very bullish, very frothy period” from the ETF approval leak in September-October 2023 up to the peak in March 2024.

One of the main fears, according to Loukas, is that Bitcoin made its last all-time high seven months ago in March, and since then, “we’ve been forming these lower highs on the monthly and also to some extent a lower low structure.” This has created anxiety among investors who “entered the market way too late, waiting for confirmation,” only to find themselves “locked out when the market went on this five straight months move,” without providing an opportunity to buy during a dip.

He points out that many investors have “rolled into a bunch of altcoins in this later period that are now down 50, 60, 70%,” leading to a situation where, despite Bitcoin being “still up around 3x off the lows,” a lot of people feel they haven’t “extracted any sort of value out of this cycle” or have even “lost money over this period.” Loukas considers this scenario to be “quite normal from a cycle structure perspective.”

He emphasizes that during this bullish phase, the market didn’t experience a “typical 30% decline at any given point,” with the “biggest declines” being “mostly time-based and were only around about 20% from peak to trough before making a new high.” This atypical behavior “threw a lot of people off” and “made it difficult for people to get in,” as they were “looking to buy on a dip which never really eventuated.”

Loukas suggests that the current consolidation is a necessary phase to “completely reset sentiment in order to prepare for the next phase of this four-year cycle.” He finds it significant that Bitcoin is “sitting here 23 months, just around 20% or so off the all-time highs of the last four-year cycle high back in 2021,” which makes it feel “more primed for the next phase of the four-year cycle than anything else.”

He also draws parallels with previous cycles, noting that from the cycle low in December 2018 to the first point where Bitcoin made a new high, “it took 23 months to get to the price four-year cycle high to exceed that.” Similar patterns were observed in earlier cycles, with timeframes of “around 25 months” and “around 22 months” to reach new all-time highs. In contrast, the current cycle achieved this milestone “in just 16 months, much sooner,” which he attributes largely to the ETF news that “forced buyers in earlier in the cycle than normal.”

Loukas believes that this accelerated timeline has created a dynamic where “we now have to rotate a lot of coins,” allowing “a lot of whales, a lot of old-timers” to “unlock” and “exit and rotate,” while “institutional players, larger account players have been accumulating those coins in this period.” He views this as “a matter of time more than anything else,” interpreting the current period as a process where the market “ends up erasing all that bullish sentiment” from the previous phase, thus allowing “a complete separation from one phase of the cycle to this phase of the cycle”—essentially a “mid-cycle decline.”

When Will BTC Price Break Out?

Overall, Loukas remains largely optimistic: “So far in this four-year cycle, I see nothing that has changed that trajectory, nothing in the profile or the structure that tells me that this cycle is any different to the last cycles.”

He cites several factors supporting his bullish outlook, including “massive inflows into Bitcoin, mostly institutional players,” and the absorption of large sell-offs by entities like “the German government” and “the US government,” which have not significantly impacted the price. Loukas emphasizes that “price is down only 20%; it’s held up well.” He also mentions that “the ETF is still there; it’s going to be pushed through the independent advisor channels,” and “the timing is there; the macro, the fundamentals are there.”

Loukas is particularly excited about the cyclical patterns, noting that “the third year of each of these four cycles is where the magic happens.” He explains that “the first year surprises everybody, that makes up a lot of ground. The second year seems like it stalls because it consolidates that first year of gains. And the third year is the mania year. And right now, beginning next month, we have the mania year that is on deck.”

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He predicts that “within the next 90 days… we’re going to break out of this consolidating range; we’re going to break to the upside.” Once this happens, he believes Bitcoin “isn’t going to look back,” anticipating a period that “may only see one or two red monthly candles and mostly green candles.” While he refrains from providing specific price targets, he acknowledges that reaching “somewhere between $120,000 and $180,000 also seems very reasonable.”

Loukas emphasizes that the focus should be on “time and sentiment,” aiming for a move “in the range where prior cycles have peaked,” which has been “very consistent at around month 35 since the last low.” This timing would place the projected peak around “October of 2025,” giving “another 12 months to an expected or projected peak.” He notes that this is not set in stone and that the peak could come “three, four, five months earlier,” as market movements “can come in many different flavors.”

Turning to the immediate future, Loukas admits that the next two months are “a little murky,” with “a lot of factors still at play right now.” He brings up the upcoming US election on November 4th, mentioning that “Trump and the GOP have really been pushing crypto and Bitcoin,” and that “the market is certainly going to respond very, very favorably to an election win by the GOP purely because of their stance on crypto.” However, he clarifies that he doesn’t think “it matters one bit” who wins, as Bitcoin has thrived even when “governments have been very hostile towards it.”

Loukas speculates that the market might “trend sideways into that period in November,” and that a significant move might not occur until after the election concludes. He suggests that “we still have around three to four weeks of some trending sideways action,” and he would be “highly surprised if this market can push into the $70,000s before the election here in the US.”

At press time, BTC traded at $60,699.

Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com