Bitcoin’s bear market could grind on until early 2027, according to Ki Young Ju, chief executive of on-chain analytics firm CryptoQuant. His warning rests on one repeating pattern: once Bitcoin holders start cashing out gains en masse, their collective profits keep shrinking for roughly a year and a half, and that countdown began in October 2025.
The call lands with Bitcoin (BTC) stuck near $73,000, derivatives traders nursing fresh losses, and the token slipping behind a row of tech stocks and commodities in the global asset rankings. The on-chain data Ju points to has flagged the top of every major cycle since 2014.
The On-Chain Signal Behind the 2027 Call
Ju built his forecast around CryptoQuant’s profit-and-loss (PnL) Index, a gauge that tracks how profitable the average Bitcoin investor is across a full market cycle. It smooths the data using moving averages calculated over a 365-day window, so short bursts of green or red get filtered out and the underlying trend shows through.
Right now that trend is pointing down. The index climbed to a peak in 2025, then rolled over, the same shape it printed before the long declines that followed Bitcoin’s previous bull runs. When the gauge falls, it means realized profits across the network are drying up and more wallets are sitting on paper losses.
Once profit-taking cascades, Bitcoin investors’ PnL typically falls for about 18 months.
That line, posted by Ju on X, is the spine of the whole forecast. Start the clock at the October 2025 trend change, add roughly 18 months, and the math lands in the first quarter of 2027. You can see the underlying profit-and-loss readings on CryptoQuant’s on-chain Bitcoin charts, which break the metric down across investor cohorts.
Three Past Peaks That Ended the Same Way
What makes the warning hard to wave away is the track record. The profit signal did not invent a new pattern in 2025. It rolled over from a high three times before, and each time a brutal, year-long drawdown followed. Ju flagged the peaks before the 2014, 2018 and 2022 bear markets as direct rhymes with today.
The depth and timing of those declines were remarkably consistent. Each cycle topped out, bled for about a year, then ground sideways through a long accumulation phase before the next leg up.
| Cycle | Peak-to-trough drop | Rough bear length | Anchor figures |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 to 2015 | around 85% | about 13 months | High near $1,150 |
| 2017 to 2018 | around 84% | about 12 months | High near $19,800 |
| 2021 to 2022 | roughly 78% | about 12 months | $69,000 down to $15,479 |
| 2025 to present | ongoing | signal rolled over October 2025 | Trading near $73,000 |
The 2021 to 2022 slide is the cleanest reference point. Bitcoin fell from its November 2021 high of $69,000 to a low of $15,479 a year later, a drop of nearly four-fifths. Ju’s argument is simply that the same profit cycle now reads the way it did at those earlier turns, and it has not started to recover.
What Would Flip the Trend Bullish
Ju was specific about the off-ramp. The bear case does not end because the price bounces for a week. It ends when the on-chain profit picture shifts in a particular way, and he says that shift has not arrived.
In his words, “The trend only changes when unrealized profits rise and realized profits fall. We’re not there yet.” Translated, the market needs holders to stop dumping coins into strength while the value of what they are holding starts to climb again. The conditions he is watching for are narrow:
- Realized profits falling, meaning fewer coins move on-chain at a gain and the wave of selling into rallies fades out.
- Unrealized profits rising, meaning the paper value of dormant holdings turns higher as price stabilizes.
- The profit gauge turning up from a low, the mirror image of the rollover that triggered the warning in the first place.
Until those line up at the same time, the signal stays bearish by Ju’s reading. That is the difference between a relief rally inside a downtrend and a genuine cycle bottom.
Price, Open Interest and a Wave of Long Liquidations
The on-chain picture is matched by stress in the derivatives market. Bitcoin has been changing hands in a tight band, and the leverage stacked on top of it has been getting cut down day by day.
- $73,289 was the Bitcoin price cited from CoinGlass data, down slightly over 24 hours.
- $55.26 billion in total open interest (OI, the value of all outstanding derivatives bets), a level that has been sliding as traders trim risk.
- $223.9 million in Bitcoin positions wiped out across a single 24-hour stretch of liquidations.
- More than $30 million in bullish bets were flushed in the most recent wave, against roughly $17 million in short positions.
That skew matters. When longs get liquidated harder than shorts, it tells you the crowd was leaning the wrong way into the drop. The same pattern of cascading long liquidations showed up earlier this year, detailed in our report on how panic selling near $70,000 wiped out billions in leveraged positions. Traders watching live Bitcoin liquidation data can see the same imbalance build in real time.
Iran, Inflation and Bitcoin’s Slide Down the Asset Rankings
The on-chain warning did not surface in a vacuum. It came as risk sentiment soured across global markets, and Bitcoin caught the downdraft alongside other speculative assets.
Fresh tension between Iran and the United States, including a round of strikes, knocked investor appetite for risk and pulled money toward safer corners. The macro hit compounded the technical one, a dynamic we covered when Bitcoin held near $73,000 under tariff and war pressure. On top of that, traders digested new inflation numbers showing the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge, rose 3.8% year over year in April. You can find the underlying release on the federal government’s April personal consumption price report. Hotter inflation pushes back the timing of rate relief, and that weighs on assets like crypto that thrive on cheap money.
The cumulative effect shows up in the league tables. Bitcoin’s market value has slipped to roughly $1.46 trillion, dropping it behind gold, which sits on top at nearly $31 trillion, plus a stack of tech giants including Nvidia, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, TSMC, Broadcom, Saudi Aramco, Tesla and Meta. Each of those now carries a higher valuation than the largest cryptocurrency, per the global ranking of assets by market value.
Why Some Desks Still Read the Tape as Bullish
Not everyone is sitting in the bear camp. Even as the profit gauge points down, positioning on the biggest venues has stayed tilted toward the upside.
The long-short ratio on major exchanges including Binance and OKX has held a bullish lean, with more traders betting on a rebound than a breakdown. That is worth a caveat: a crowded long book is exactly what fuels the kind of cascading liquidations seen in recent sessions, so optimism on the order book can cut both ways. Broader market fragility, where leverage, tariffs and conflict feed on each other, was the backdrop to this year’s sharpest sell-offs, as we noted when the crypto market cracked under tariffs, war and leverage. Current positioning is visible through CoinGlass’s aggregated long-short ratio dashboard.
It is also worth remembering this is one analyst’s read of one metric, and even CryptoQuant has flagged that profit-taking can intensify inside a bear-market rally rather than mark a clean bottom. If the profit signal turns up before next spring, Ju’s 2027 timeline gets pulled forward. If it keeps sliding the way it did after 2014, 2018 and 2022, holders are barely a third of the way through the wait.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long could the Bitcoin bear market last?
CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju estimates it could run until early 2027. His model assumes Bitcoin investor profits typically decline for about 18 months once heavy profit-taking begins, and he dates the current downturn to October 2025.
What is CryptoQuant’s PnL Index?
It is an on-chain gauge that measures how profitable the average Bitcoin investor is across a market cycle, smoothed using moving averages over a 365-day period. When the index rolls over from a high, it signals that network-wide profits are shrinking.
Why does the bear market clock start in October 2025?
That is when Ju says the profit-and-loss trend changed direction and began falling. Adding the historical 18-month decline window to that starting point lands the projected end of the downturn in the first quarter of 2027.
What would signal the bear market is ending?
Ju says the trend only flips when unrealized profits start rising while realized profits fall at the same time. As of his latest comments, that combination has not appeared on-chain, so he considers the signal still bearish.
How far has Bitcoin fallen in past bear markets?
Historically the drops have been severe. The 2021 to 2022 bear market saw Bitcoin fall roughly 78%, from a high of $69,000 to a low of $15,479, while the 2014 and 2018 downturns each cut prices by more than 80% from peak to trough.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile and carry substantial risk of loss; forecasts such as the one described here are opinions, not guarantees. Consult a qualified financial professional before making any investment decision. All figures are accurate as of publication.
