Bitcoin Could Plunge Another 30% in 2026-Experts Warn of Deepening Bear Market

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<a href="https://minority-mindset.com/btc-usd/">Bitcoin</a> could crash by another 30% as four-year cycle gains strength, investment firm saysMarkets

What to know:

  • Bitcoin is now firmly in a deep bear market and could fall another 30% in 2026, according to CK Zheng of ZX Squared Capital.
  • Zheng argues that predictable investor psychology reinforces bitcoin’s four-year boom-and-bust pattern, keeping it a speculative asset rather than a safe-haven like gold.

In this article

BTCBTC$68,025.16◢3.42%

According to CK Zheng, who founded the crypto investment firm ZX Squared Capital, Bitcoin is currently experiencing the worst part of a prolonged downturn, and prices could fall further.

According to Zheng, Bitcoin’s price has clearly entered a significant downturn, and he anticipates it will fall another 30% in 2026, potentially influenced by the start of the Iran war. He believes this decline is part of a recurring four-year price cycle, as he explained to CoinDesk.

Bitcoin, the most well-known cryptocurrency, has dropped significantly in value since reaching its peak of over $126,000 last October. Currently, it’s trading at around $68,000, nearly half of its previous high, according to CoinDesk.

The four-year bitcoin cycle

Many cryptocurrency investors believe prices follow a roughly four-year pattern. This cycle involves a price increase, followed by a decline, and then a recovery, and it’s closely linked to an event called the ‘halving’ where the reward for mining crypto is cut in half.

As a crypto investor, I know the halving is a big deal for Bitcoin. It basically cuts the rate at which new Bitcoins are created in half roughly every four years. The latest one happened in April 2024. When Bitcoin first launched, miners earned 50 Bitcoins per block, but after four halvings, that reward is now down to just 3.125 BTC per block. It’s a programmed event designed to control the supply and, hopefully, increase value over time.

As I’ve observed in past cycles, Bitcoin’s price usually reaches its highest point around 16 to 18 months after a halving event. Following that peak, we typically see a downturn, or bear market, that lasts for roughly a year.

Bitcoin likely reached its peak in October of last year, about 18 months after the April 2024 halving event, suggesting the typical market pattern is repeating. This means the current downturn could get worse in the short term.

Zheng explained that it’s been really hard to change the current pattern. He believes this is simply due to the way people think.

According to Zheng, the predictable four-year pattern in cryptocurrency prices is becoming more established and hard to disrupt, largely because of how individual investors tend to react emotionally.

People investing their own money often follow a pattern: they get excited and buy when prices are rising, and they get scared and sell when prices fall. This tendency fuels the repeating cycle of rapid growth followed by crashes that has characterized the cryptocurrency market for over ten years.

Zheng explained that bitcoin continues to behave more like a risky investment than a secure store of value, similar to gold.

He also noted that widespread use of bitcoin by institutions is still happening at a slow pace and on a small scale. He cautioned that some companies holding bitcoin as an investment might need to sell it, which could cause the price to fall further.

Currently, crypto ETFs and companies holding digital assets only represent about 10% of the overall cryptocurrency market. According to Zheng, some of these companies might have to sell their crypto holdings to cover debts during this market downturn, potentially creating a negative spiral.

Currently, Zheng believes the cryptocurrency market downturn could continue for a while before it starts to recover.

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2026-03-07 08:46