Bitcoin in 2026: Is the Bottom Already In, or Is More Pain Coming?
Bitcoin has been declining over the past days, weeks, and months after reaching its all-time high at the end of 2025. The price has already dropped by more than 50%. Is this decline already the price bottom, or can we expect further drops?
What you'll find in this article about Bitcoin in 2026:
- A brief description of Bitcoin's historical price cycles
- Commentary on this year's price action
- Factual figures on post-ATH price declines
- An estimate of this year's potential price drop
Four-Year Price Cycles
The technical side is driven by the halving, which reduces the supply of new Bitcoins entering the market, creating imbalance and driving price growth. The second part is market capitalization, which limits price growth from the top.
The psychological side was fueled by media coverage. Rising crypto prices make for great headlines and viewer engagement. Media-driven hype brought a massive influx of retail money into the entire crypto ecosystem. In the final stages of the last peak, institutional investors added their free capital as well.
The psychological aspect of Bitcoin's price is well illustrated by Google search interest data. The correlation is clear: the more interest in Bitcoin during the uptrend, the greater the price growth. The bigger the drop in interest during the decline - and especially during prolonged stagnation - the worse it is for BTC's price.
More: FOMO effect, economic hype/bubble.
Interest in Bitcoin over time, Source: Google Trends
The technical side can be seen in the total number of mined Bitcoins and those still left to mine. The rising stepped line shows the number of already-mined BTC - those theoretically available for sale. After the change in the inflow of new BTC from mining, the price usually starts rising shortly afterward.
BTC price, mined Bitcoins, remaining to be mined. Source: glassnode.com
Market capitalization - not just of Bitcoin but of the entire crypto ecosystem - limits price growth from above. The principle is simple again: while in 2013, a fraction of a billion dollars - found in the spare cash of a few tens or low hundreds of thousands of IT enthusiasts - was enough to drive the price up, by 2017, that figure had already reached the billions. To push the price up to $126,000 in 2025 required rough inflow estimates of $50-100 billion.
Right now, a similar fresh capital inflow would be needed for a significant upward move in BTC price, and the required amount could reach triple-digit billions if the price is to surpass the last ATH. Those are truly large sums of money.
The chart above shows that the relative price increase in each new cycle is lower due to the exponential growth in required capital.
The total capital, number of investors and users in the entire crypto ecosystem, and their psychology (trust or distrust) also work on the dark side of bright tomorrows - when Bitcoin falls from its trip to the moon. More hodlers, higher price, and higher capitalization mean a more gradual relative price decline.
BTC market capitalization, Source: coinmarketcap
Psychology and technical factors were the same in all previous cycles, so BTC price increases could be predicted quite well from prior patterns and previous peaks. Already in 2017, it was possible to estimate the height and timing of the price bubble fairly accurately (within tens of percent). In 2025, Bitcoin then hit the four-year model on the exact day, with a price only a few percent different from previous cycles.
It will be interesting to watch in 2028 and 2029 whether BTC repeats its place in the sun.
BTC price bubbles with halving, Source: Kurzy.cz
But what about Bitcoin this year?
We are not currently in a situation where Bitcoin is a media darling filling prime-time news slots. We are in the middle of 2026, in the middle of a price depression that continues to trend lower. The market is full of new investments promising heavenly returns, along with upcoming record-breaking AI technology IPOs (Open AI, Anthropic). Tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars are flowing - and will continue to flow - into tech investments, including dollars previously parked in crypto (IPO stats: $114 billion for the first half of 2026).
Predicting the Bitcoin price decline is not that simple, at least not in terms of timing. After ATHs in previous cycles, the price fell to a certain minimum and stayed there for some time. The key period for Bitcoin's lowest prices was roughly 340 - 440 days after the ATH.
The black line of the current BTC price path in the chart may give a slight hint about where this article is heading. For context on the image: At the time of writing, we are about 275 days into the cycle, at roughly 50% of the ATH.
Comparison of BTC post-ATH price drops, Source: Kurzy.cz
The chart shows that Bitcoin is falling quite "normally." Hodlers from previous cycles are therefore probably scrolling past heartbreaking articles in the style of "maybe Bitcoin will finally wake up" with mild disdain and looking forward to day 500 or 550. Buyers are on edge: "Will it drop more, or are we already at the time bottom - will I miss the opportunity?"
Overview of Bitcoin Price Declines in Past Cycles
The following table, like the chart above, will likely not please fresh hodlers much but will give some hope to those who want to hop on for a short layover and ride the rocket even higher - this time really to the Moon.
Table data:
- Minimum price - relative comparison of the lowest price in that cycle after ATH
- Days after ATH - how many days after the price peak the minimum occurred
- +/- 15, 30, and 60 days - average relative BTC price around the minimum vs. the peak
| Day of ATH | 2011-06-08 | 2013-11-30 | 2017-12-17 | 2021-11-08 | 2025-10-06 |
| Days after ATH | 164 | 413 | 363 | 378 | 267 |
| Minimum | 7.1% | 18.3% | 16.3% | 23.4% | 46.5% |
| +/- 15 days | 8.8% | 22.4% | 19.2% | 25.1% | 49.3% |
| +/- 30 days | 9.4% | 23.3% | 20.4% | 26.4% | 50.2% |
| +/- 60 days | 12.9% | 25.5% | 22.8% | 27.1% | 55.9% |
So What Will Happen with Bitcoin This Year?
New Year's Eve 2026 will be day 451 from the last ATH reached on October 6, 2025. If the crypto market behaves as it has in the past, we will certainly find out this year where the minimum of the current cycle lies.
In the 2013 and 2017 cycles, BTC's price fell to around 20% of the ATH value. After 2021, it reached about 25%. The current 50% of the price peak is almost certainly not the end of the bears' efforts.
If Bitcoin follows its habits, we will see a nice further piece of the road down in the coming months, to around 30 - 35% of the ATH. The price would thus fall into the $38,000 - $44,000 USD/BTC range, more likely toward the lower end, around October 15, 2026.
But as we know well from recent times, habits exist precisely so they can be broken someday ;-)
Disclaimer
Past event patterns do not guarantee future behavior. Do not open short positions - especially with leverage - based on a single article on the internet. If you found the article useful, please share it. (or cz version)
Kurzy.cz is the largest Czech financial portal, with a history of over 25 years and 2.5 million readers. It provides information on investments, personal finance, business, and the public sector.
The author of the article is the CEO and has worked on the development and content of kurzy.cz since its inception.
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