The cycle is not over yet, major companies’ execs argue. The Bitcoin (BTC) drawdown is the result of sentiment shocks, not fundamentals, and unless it falls below the March 2024 ATH, the coin should continue the rally towards $160,000 soon.
December began with a market drop. At the time of writing on Monday morning (UTC), it’s down nearly 6% over the last 24 hours, standing at $3.01 trillion.
BTC specifically decreased by 5.8% in the same timeframe, currently trading at $85,999. It’s down 0.5% in a week, 22% in a month, 11.5% in a year, and 32% from the October all-time high of $126,080.
‘Directionless Volatility’ Over Coming Months
John Glover, Chief Investment Officer of financial services company Ledn, recently discussed the market’s current position.
He argued that we’re currently in a Wave IV correction, which typically completes at either the 23.6% fibbo (Fibonacci retracement) or the 38.2% fibbo.
“If this is true in the current situation,” he writes in an email, “we have already finished Wave IV and we should now resume the uptrend.”
However, Glover notes the so-called Rule of Alternation. If Wave II is a very simple A-B-C correction, which it was in this case, Wave IV tends to be more complex. “What we’ve seen thus far in this correction has been rapid and quite simple in its formation,” he says.
However, he also argued that it is still possible that we’re experiencing a wave 5 (of Wave III) extension.
This is relevant, as it would take the price to $125,000 before we see a correction.
Moreover, unless BTC breaches the March 2024 high of $74,000, “there’s no real threat of a drastic sell off,” Glover writes. “So I expect the market to continue adding to longs on any dips.”
All this said, “my view is that we will see a lot of ‘directionless volatility’ over the coming months, with the low being set somewhere between $71,000 and $80,000.”
The good news is that “once that base has fully formed, the rally will continue into the end of 2026/beginning of 2027 with a target of $145,000 to $160,000 depending on where the bottom of Wave IV finalizes,” the exec concludes.
BTC Drop Is ‘Sentiment Capitulation, Not Structural Deterioration’
Fabian Dori, CIO at digital asset bank Sygnum, argued that the capitulation is being driven by sentiment shocks, and not macro or structural fundamentals.
There are three key elements that have had a notable impact over the fourth quarter of 2025:
Macro shocks: the US-China trade war, the US government shutdown limiting macro visibility, reduced immediate prospects of a December rate cut; Market-structure stress: excessive leverage and immature price-oracles triggering a historic liquidation, key market-makers rumours, false speculation about institutional selling; Liquidity pressure: the US Treasury’s build-up of its cash account, private credit markets volatility, exhausted Digital Asset Treasury buying power.However, according to Dori, “despite battered sentiment and heightened volatility, both macro and crypto-specific drivers continue to point to powerful tailwinds.”
This suggests that the recent correction is “excessive rather than structural.”
Moreover, Dori argues that the cycle is not ending yet.
“The shift in narrative was triggered less by fundamentals and more by a sudden re-pricing of risks at a time when investors were already debating whether the Four-Year Cycle had peaked,” he said.
Dori concluded that “these signals reflect sentiment capitulation rather than long-term deterioration in fundamentals. From a cycle perspective, we see a maturing phase rather than an ending one.”
Therefore, while Q4 has seen “a painful correction and sentiment reset,” the medium-term drivers of this cycle are intact. These include macro momentum, liquidity, onchain fundamentals, and regulation.
“The current environment is uncomfortable in the short term,” Dori says, “but historically it has offered attractive entry points for investors with a mid-to long-term horizon, rather than cycle endings.”
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