Bitcoin is still trading above $60,000, but there are questions as to whether that area has already become the macro bottom for this correction or whether another crash could still drag the price back into that zone. Technical analysis using Bitcoin’s weekly RSI, prior cycle support, and the 21-week and 50-week EMA trend presents the bullish side of that trend, but bears can still argue that confirmation has not arrived until Bitcoin breaks above the weekly EMA structure.
Bitcoin Might Have Bottomed Already
The strongest argument that Bitcoin may have already bottomed is from the weekly RSI indicator. According to the thesis shared by Cryptoposeidon on X, Bitcoin’s weekly RSI has fallen below 30 only four times in history. The first three came around the January 2015, December 2018, and June 2022 lows, all of which later became macro bottom zones.
Back in January 2015, Bitcoin’s RSI fell to about 28 when the price fell to $200. A similar pattern played out in December 2018, when RSI dipped below 30 around $3,500, followed by about three months of sideways accumulation before Bitcoin broke higher. The third instance was June 2022, in the depths of the bear market that followed the Luna collapse.
The fourth reading came in early February 2026, shortly after Bitcoin’s crash into a bottom around $63,000, and this supports the proposal that Bitcoin may have already gone through its major capitulation phase.
The weekly candlestick timeframe chart below also shows the RSI recovering from a low band similar to the previous bear-market bottom zones, with the projected path suggesting that momentum could spend more time rebuilding before a stronger move returns in 2027.
What Confirmation And Return To $100,000 Actually Looks Like
The last two bear markets both took 364 days to move from peak to trough. The current correction is now 236 days old, which leaves a 128-day window for Bitcoin to make another low if it follows the same timing pattern.
However, looking at November 2022, Bitcoin broke below the prior cycle’s $19,900 peak and collapsed to $15,500, spending a brief period under $16,000. That breakdown was forced by the FTX implosion, a black swan event that liquidated billions in assets and obliterated confidence simultaneously. Without a comparable catalytic shock, current crypto market dynamics lack the mechanism to sustain prices below $60,000 within the remaining 128-day window for a bottom.
Bitcoin’s long-term support band is between $58,000 and $66,000, and the February 2026 low is inside that range. Bitcoin can still wick to $55,000 or even $50,000 in a liquidation event, but spending a long period below $60,000 would require a very strong bearish catalyst.
On the other hand, a reclaim and monthly close above the weekly EMA and $80,000 in June 2026 would change the conversation from “Is $60,000 the bottom?” to “How fast can Bitcoin rebuild toward $100,000?” At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $72,860, down by 1.2% in the past 24 hours.
Bitcoin is approaching a pivotal moment, with several key support and resistance levels set to determine its next major move. While bulls are fighting to maintain critical price zones and preserve the broader recovery structure, bears continue to pressure the market from above.
Bitcoin Struggles Below $78,080 As Bears Retain Control
Analyst Kamile Uray notes that Bitcoin’s recent recovery attempt was feeble, with the price remaining trapped below the critical $78,080 threshold. Until the market secures a decisive 4-hour close above this level, the structural outlook remains vulnerable, and the downward trend is likely to persist.
To the downside, attention shifts toward the Fibonacci support zone spanning $71,000 to $68,000. This region historically attracts buyers and could serve as a vital foundation for a structural rebound.
Conversely, should the market turn bullish, traders must watch the $82,885 level as the primary launchpad. A successful close above this resistance opens the door to targets at $98,000, $107,000, and $109,000 that would require significant conviction to overcome.
Examining the longer-term landscape, $126,199 represents a pivotal ceiling where corrective pressure may reemerge. Ultimately, $60,000 stands as the final defense line for the asset’s structural health.
$72,500 Monthly Low Becomes The Key Level To Watch
As the new month kicks off, Lennaert Snyder identifies the $72,500 level as the critical pivot point for Bitcoin. Serving as both the Previous Monthly Low (PML) and the Previous Weekly Low (PWL), this zone dictates the immediate market bias. A decisive breakdown here would establish a strong bearish confluence, making a recovery to the previous monthly high (PMH) of $82,500 highly improbable.
Snyder’s ideal short strategy hinges on the loss of this $72,500 threshold. If the price fails to maintain this support, he anticipates a relief retest of the range, using the $78,000 Previous Weekly High (PWH) as the ceiling. This setup would provide a high-probability entry for shorts to drive the asset down to test new lows.
However, if the market successfully defends the $72,500 PML/PWL and generates a clean bullish reaction, the focus shifts to the long side. In this scenario, Snyder intends to play the continuation of the trend, provided the market maintains its structure. He emphasizes monitoring the identified imbalances, which serve as key Points of Interest (POIs) that will help determine the validity of each move.
While there is room for counter-trend opportunities, they require strict discipline. Snyder notes that while a bounce after a breach of the $72,500 support is technically possible, it remains a high-risk play. Consequently, he views such trades strictly as short-term scalps rather than foundational positions, preferring to align with the dominant trend once the market shows its hand.
The US Treasury market is the foundation of the global financial system. It determines mortgage rates, government borrowing costs, corporate lending, and the price of money across the world. For decades, investors treated it as the safest and most stable market on Earth.
But after years of exploding government debt, repeated liquidity scares, and increasingly aggressive Federal Reserve interventions, Wall Street is starting to confront an uncomfortable possibility: the Treasury market may have become too large, too leveraged, and too systemically important to function without constant support.
Now, with debt issuance accelerating and bond yields elevated, a different fear has taken hold inside financial markets: whether the world’s most important market can still absorb America’s borrowing needs without something breaking.
Foreign central banks have reduced their share of Treasury holdings, and the Federal Reserve, after expanding its balance sheet to $8.5 trillion at the 2022 peak through successive rounds of quantitative easing, has spent the years since trying to shrink it.
That left private markets, including hedge funds, asset managers, individual investors, and increasingly stablecoin issuers, to absorb what sovereign and central bank demand once handled.
When the debt market started needing support
The warning signs had been accumulating for years. The September 2019 repo market freeze was the first real signal that something changed beneath the surface: short-term funding markets seized without warning, and the Fed was forced to inject emergency liquidity within days.
The second and far more alarming episode came in March 2020, when the onset of COVID-19 triggered a mass liquidation of Treasury securities, with institutional investors selling “the world’s safest asset” alongside everything else as they scrambled for cash at any price.
What Brookings Institution researchers later described as the evaporation of bond market liquidity forced the Fed into massive, unprecedented emergency purchases to restore market functioning, interventions that worked but also established a precedent that’s proven difficult to walk back.
Underneath those acute stress events is a structural feature of modern Treasury trading that regulators have grown increasingly worried about. Hedge funds have become central players in what’s known as the cash-futures basis trade, a leveraged arbitrage strategy that exploits tiny price differences between Treasury securities and Treasury futures contracts by holding bond positions funded almost entirely through overnight repo borrowing.
The April 2025 tariff announcement tested that assessment almost immediately: liquidity deteriorated sharply within days, prompting speculation about Fed intervention before conditions eventually stabilized.
The repo facilities, standing liquidity programs, and targeted purchases used to stabilize those episodes were designed as emergency instruments, but they’ve since become recurring features of the system.
What a strained Treasury market means for everyone
Mortgage rates are where this kind of structural pressure becomes tangible for the average person. The 30-year fixed mortgage rate tracks the 10-year Treasury yield closely, which is why the 10-year’s refusal to fall below 4.3% through much of 2025 and into 2026 kept home loan rates pinned well above 6% even after the Fed cut its benchmark rate three consecutive times.
The central bank’s short-term policy rate and the long bond have now essentially decoupled, showing the bond market’s growing preoccupation with debt supply over short-term monetary signals from the Fed.
At the government level, the numbers are self-reinforcing in ways the Congressional Budget Office has put in specific dollar terms: interest payments are projected to climb from $1 trillion annually in 2026 toward $2.1 trillion by 2036, with an alternative scenario where persistently elevated yields push that figure toward $2.2 trillion.
Every dollar spent servicing debt is a dollar unavailable for anything else, and the debt is rolling over at higher rates every year. A run of weak Treasury auctions in early 2026 brought that into sharp focus: in a two-year note sale in late March, primary dealers absorbed roughly twice their normal share, a clear sign that the marginal buyer base has thinned considerably.
The connection to Treasury yields has become one of Bitcoin’s defining macro features of 2026. CryptoSlate has documented how Bitcoin’s near-term price ceiling has repeatedly been set by yield movements.
The 10-year crossing above 4.5% and the 30-year climbing toward 5.1%, its highest level since 2007, pushed Bitcoin back below $80,000 last week even after Congress advanced one of the industry’s most-watched regulatory milestones.
The Fed rate cuts that crypto markets treated as a reliable macro tailwind have been priced out of the near-term picture entirely, with Barclays moving its first expected cut to March 2027 and futures markets now assigning meaningful odds to a hike before the end of the year.
There’s a specifically crypto-native dimension to how the buyer composition has shifted. As foreign central banks and the Fed have pulled back from Treasury markets, Tether has filled part of the gap, with its Treasury exposure reaching $141 billion in 2025 and making it one of the largest non-sovereign holders of US government debt.
That demand supports the short end of the market, and it means that crypto-native capital is now embedded in America’s debt infrastructure in a way that would have seemed implausible a decade ago. It also means that any stress in the stablecoin market is now capable of rippling directly through Treasuries. For years, inflation prints were the primary input that moved markets.
Today, Treasury auction results, refinancing calendars, and the buyers absorbing new supply have taken over the weekly agenda. The concern growing across the financial system is now deeper than the scale of America’s borrowing.
It reaches toward whether the combination of central bank backstops, leveraged private capital, and an increasingly disparate group of marginal buyers is stable enough to keep absorbing it.
A crypto analyst has identified multiple price levels he believes could be dream entry points ahead of Bitcoin’s (BTC) long-term price rally. The analyst has shared several ambitious price targets for BTC, expecting the cryptocurrency to skyrocket to $300,000 and even $500,000 in the coming years.
Analyst Identifies Bitcoin Buy Zones Before $300,000 Target
In a recent X post, market expert Crypto Patel stated that while many investors are panicking after Bitcoin’s recent decline below $74,000, he is using the opportunity to quietly build his position. The analyst said he is preparing to buy more BTC, suggesting that additional dip buying opportunities may still lie ahead as he targets a long-term rally above $300,000.
Crypto Patel has identified three ideal Bitcoin accumulation zones ahead of this projected move. The zones are based on Fibonacci retracement levels highlighted on his accompanying chart. The analyst noted that the first entry point around $60,000 has already been filled, leaving just two ideal points remaining. He noted that this first zone aligns with the 0.382 retracement level and a bullish order block.
Crypto Patel also identified a second accumulation zone near $45,000, which aligns with the 0.5 Fibonacci retracement level. He noted that he is patiently waiting for a move into this area before adding more BTC to his position. Meanwhile, the third and most aggressive zone sits around $35,000, close to the 0.618 retracement. Crypto Patel described this area as a “dream entry” point, suggesting that it would offer the most attractive buying opportunity of the three targets provided if Bitcoin were to decline that far.
Notably, the foundation of Crypto Patel’s bullish analysis and accumulation zone rests on an Inverse Head & Shoulders pattern that formed on the weekly chart between 2022 and early 2024. According to the analyst’s chart, the pattern took shape as Bitcoin suffered a 77.6% decline from its previous peak in 2024, with that market bottom forming the head of the H&S pattern.
When BTC confirmed a breakout from that structure in early 2024, it signaled a major market shift, with buyers gaining most control. After this, the cryptocurrency recorded a major price rally that carried it to its current all-time high above $126,000, set in October 2025.
Once that ATH was hit, Bitcoin eventually met significant resistance between $84,000 and $100,000. A subsequent rejection in that area brought Bitcoin back down into the current retracement territory around $74,000, where Crypto Patel’s accumulation plan is now playing out.
Multi-Year BTC Price Targets Point To $500,000 Peak
Crypto Patel’s accumulation strategy for Bitcoin also feeds into a longer price roadmap based on Fibonacci extension levels stretching into 2027 and 2028. The analyst has set an initial long-term target of $200,000, representing a more than 170% increase from current levels above $73,000.
For his second target, the analyst expects Bitcoin to rally to $300,000. The price curve shown on the analyst’s chart suggests that this move could unfold by late 2027 if market conditions remain favorable. Beyond that, Crypto Patel projects an ultimate peak near $500,000. A rise to this bold target would mark a staggering gain of over 580% from current prices.
Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView
CME Group says its regulated crypto futures and options will move to 24-hour, seven-day trading on May 29, pending regulatory review, cutting into one of Bitcoin‘s familiar institutional market tells.
The weekday venue that helped create weekend CME-gap talk is preparing to keep matching trades while crypto prices keep moving.
CME is extending the moment traders can execute, while other parts of the regulated futures stack still keep a business-day clock.
Weekend and holiday trades from Friday evening through Sunday evening will still carry the following business day’s trade date, and CME says clearing, settlement and regulatory reporting tied to that activity will be processed on that following business day.
For participating institutional users, the execution gap gets smaller. The harder question shifts to liquidity quality, clearing behavior and Monday post-trade processing.
CME announced that its regulated cryptocurrency futures and options will become available for trading 24 hours a day, seven days a week beginning May 29, pending regulatory review.
The move applies to the exchange’s crypto futures and options complex and is being implemented through CME Globex and ClearPort, subject to maintenance windows.
The commercial case is clear. CME said client demand for digital-asset risk management reached a record level, with $3 trillion in notional volume across its crypto futures and options in 2025.
It also reported 407,200 year-to-date average daily contracts in 2026, up 46% from the prior year.
Those figures show why the weekend access problem has moved beyond a meme. Bitcoin traded around $75,782 in CryptoSlate’s May 27 snapshot, with a market capitalization near $1.52 trillion and 24-hour volume near $35.17 billion.
In a market of that size, a regulated derivatives venue that closes through the weekend can leave institutional desks managing price risk with a time-zone mismatch.
For traders using futures to hedge spot exposure, manage basis, or offset ETF-linked flows, the practical question is whether the regulated instruments they are allowed or required to use can respond when prices move outside the old CME week.
CME’s move gives qualified participants a regulated execution channel during periods that previously sat outside that trading window.
That access can change how a weekend shock is absorbed. Instead of compressing every move into a Sunday evening or Monday reopening, participating desks can hedge, roll, quote or adjust exposure while the broader crypto market is already trading.
The improvement is meaningful for basis trades, ETF-linked exposure, liquidation risk and headline-driven volatility, even as the rest of the regulated workflow remains more constrained.
For CME, the scale also shifts the launch from product housekeeping into market-structure work: a large derivatives franchise is adapting its access model to an asset class that keeps pricing risk through weekends.
The Post-Trade Clock Still Runs On Business Days
CME’s clearing and global operations guidelines spell out the limit of the change. The document says there will still be five business days, Monday through Friday, and that Saturday and Sunday clearing settlement cycles are outside the new setup.
The distinction is operationally important: execution becomes continuous, while the official machinery that turns trades into cleared obligations still leans on the next business day.
Layer
Weekend change
Business-day mechanic
Trading access
Crypto futures and options can trade through weekends and holidays, subject to maintenance windows.
Some clients may remain on five-day access instead of enabling seven-day trading.
Trade date
Trades can be executed from Friday evening through Sunday evening.
Those trades carry the following business day’s trade date.
Clearing and settlement
Weekend trades are accepted into the regulated workflow.
Settlement-cycle processing waits for the following business day.
Regulatory reporting
Weekend activity enters the reporting chain.
CME says reporting tied to weekend and holiday activity is processed on the following business day.
That design reflects the unresolved operating problem for regulated crypto markets. Crypto prices can move continuously, while futures markets depend on clearing members, collateral, risk controls, settlement cycles, reporting records and operational staffing built around business-day discipline.
CME’s guidelines show how the exchange is trying to bridge the mismatch. Clearing members that participate in supplemental trading hours must be approved by CME Clearing.
They must have risk policies and procedures that cover the extra hours, including account monitoring, credit controls, position limits, intraday and overnight monitoring, and defined liquidity sources.
During certain weekend hours, CME Clearing will monitor exposure against posted performance bond and available liquidity. Clearing members are required to submit weekly liquidity templates and deposit collateral for anticipated weekend clearing activity by Friday afternoon into separate weekend settlement accounts.
Those mechanics are the back-office version of 24/7 trading: prefunded risk capacity and monitoring until the business-day cycle catches up.
Weekend Liquidity Has To Prove Itself
The old CME gap became shorthand because Bitcoin and other crypto assets kept trading while CME’s institutional venue was closed. If spot prices moved sharply on Saturday, CME futures reopened later at a different level, creating a visible gap on the chart.
That chart pattern was only one part of the issue. The deeper problem was that regulated access stopped during precisely the period when crypto-native venues, offshore platforms, ETFs, market makers and leveraged traders could still be forced to react.
CME’s BTIC materials show how weekend access reaches the basis-trading and ETF workflows around crypto futures, not just directional bets.
In plain terms, a basis trade at index close lets participants trade crypto futures basis against CME CF reference rates, including reference-rate closes in London, New York and APAC. CME also cites ETF creation and redemption NAV risk as a use case.
That places CME’s derivatives complex close to the plumbing of institutional exposure. A desk managing basis against a reference rate, hedging ETF-linked exposure, or carrying futures against spot needs instruments, margin processes and liquidity when prices move.
Access alone still leaves market quality to prove itself. If weekend books are thin, spreads widen, or clearing constraints bite during stress, the market may feel more available without feeling fully continuous.
CME appears aware of that risk. Separate CFTC filings show weekend market-maker programs for cryptocurrency futures and options.
The options program says participants must quote continuous two-sided markets in covered products at maximum bid-ask spreads and minimum quote sizes during a required share of time in market.
Those filings support a launch-liquidity program rather than evidence of deep weekend markets. The first live measure will be practical: which clearing members enable seven-day access, how much volume trades outside old hours, how weekend bid-ask spreads compare with weekdays, whether options quotes remain reliable, and whether exposure alerts or prefunding requirements shape behavior during volatile periods.
There are two plausible paths. In the stronger version, CME’s weekend access becomes a genuine pressure valve.
Institutional traders can hedge, roll, quote and adjust exposure while crypto-native markets are already moving, and Monday becomes more of an administrative processing point than a delayed risk event.
In the weaker version, the venue is technically open while liquidity remains uneven, with many users still treating Monday as the real moment when weekend activity becomes visible in clearing, settlement and reporting.
The launch would still be important; it would show that the weekend gap has migrated from price charts into market depth and operations.
CME’s 24/7 launch gives institutional traders a way to use familiar futures and options products while Bitcoin and the broader crypto market move through weekends and holidays.
It also exposes the limits of the shift. Regulated crypto can trade more like crypto, while it still clears and reports through machinery built for business days.
For the weekend gap, the split is now clearer. CME is likely to kill the most visible version for traders who can access the venue through the weekend.
The tougher part moves into a less visible place: whether liquidity, risk controls and clearing behavior can make regulated crypto feel continuous when the back office still keeps a business-day clock.
Rising short positions across American stocks are starting to shape a different conversation around Bitcoin’s role in global markets.
According to CryptoQuant contributor XWIN Japan, a market increasingly built on hedging, concentrated AI trades, and heavy leverage could push more institutional capital toward BTC if liquidity conditions improve later in the year.
Wall Street Hedging and Bitcoin’s Changing Behavior
XWIN Japan argued in a market update published earlier today that the rise in US equity short interest does not necessarily point to outright bearish sentiment. Instead, hedge funds appear to be stacking defensive positions while keeping long exposure intact.
Per the crypto research institution, hedge fund gross leverage has climbed to around 293%, alongside record S&P 500 short exposure and elevated Days-to-Cover metrics.
Much of that pressure appears tied to heavy concentration in a handful of AI-related megacap stocks, while weaker sectors and smaller companies have been attracting shorter bets.
That backdrop matters for Bitcoin because it has historically traded closely with equities during market panics. For example, during the COVID-19 selloff in 2020, BTC fell alongside stocks rather than acting as a safe haven.
But according to XWIN, that relationship started to shift in 2025. While the S&P 500 has traded in a relatively tight range, BTC has shown larger swings tied to ETF demand, leverage activity, and crypto-native liquidity flows.
It concluded that going forward, Bitcoin may become a hybrid asset, still exposed to macro liquidity conditions, but more capable of moving on its own terms.
“If future conditions include Fed easing, weaker dollar conditions, and renewed ETF inflows,” XWIN wrote, “Bitcoin could become a secondary liquidity destination rather than simply a correlated tech-like asset.”
The OG crypto asset had fallen over the weekend to around $74,000 but rebounded above $77,000 as reports suggested developments toward a potential ceasefire agreement between the USA and Iran.
But as of the time of writing, data on CoinGecko showed it had dropped back below $77,000 by a few hundred dollars, leaving it down almost 30% over the past year.
On-Chain Activity Cools While Traders Watch Key Levels
Meanwhile, the current consolidation phase has seen Bitcoin’s network activity drop off sharply, with crypto analyst Ali Martinez revealing that active addresses fell nearly 40% in two weeks, from 821,000 to 494,000.
According to him, weaker activity during sideways price action often indicates short-term traders leaving the market, while longer-term holders retain supply.
He added that derivatives traders are increasingly positioned for a breakout, with funding rates recently touching 0.4%, their highest level in more than two months. On-chain data also showed large holders redistributing more than 18,000 BTC during the consolidation period.
Martinez identified resistance around $78,000 and support near $76,000, with a move above resistance, in his opinion, possibly opening the door toward $85,000, while losing support may send Bitcoin toward the mid-$60,000 range.
Bitcoin remains under bearish pressure after failing to sustain momentum above the critical $80K-$82K resistance region. However, recent price action suggests buyers are attempting to defend the important $75K support zone, increasing the probability of a short-term corrective rebound before the broader downtrend resumes.
While the market structure still favors sellers, the current positioning near key support and liquidity clusters could trigger a temporary bullish correction in the coming sessions.
Bitcoin Price Analysis: The Daily Chart
On the daily timeframe, BTC has entered a corrective phase after being rejected from the major supply zone around $82K-$84K, which also aligned with the upper boundary of the ascending channel. The rejection accelerated selling pressure and pushed the asset toward the important demand area at $75K-$76K.
Recently, the price swept below the $75K support region before quickly recovering, suggesting active buyer interest and potential liquidity collection beneath local lows. This recovery has led to a modest bullish reaction, with BTC currently attempting to stabilize above the $76K area.
Despite this rebound, the broader structure remains cautious. Bitcoin is still trading beneath previous support turned resistance, and as long as Bitcoin remains below the $80K-$82K region, any upside movement may simply represent a corrective pullback within a larger bearish retracement.
The first upside target for a relief rally sits around $78K-$80K, while stronger resistance remains at $82K-$84K. Failure to reclaim these levels could increase the probability of another bearish leg toward the next major daily demand zone around $70K-$71K. A deeper breakdown may eventually expose the lower support area near $65K-$66K.
BTC/USDT 4-Hour Chart
The 4-hour chart highlights a clearer short-term recovery attempt. After reaching the $75K-$76K order block, Bitcoin generated a sharp bounce and is now consolidating around $76K-$77K.
This reaction indicates that buyers are defending the local support area, potentially setting the stage for a corrective move higher. If momentum persists, the first pullback target lies near the $78K-$79K range, followed by the more significant resistance zone around $80K-$82K.
However, the broader lower-high formation remains intact, and recent price action still reflects weakening bullish momentum compared to earlier recovery phases. As a result, the current rebound could evolve into a classic bearish continuation setup, where price revisits resistance before initiating another decline.
For bulls to regain control, Bitcoin would need to reclaim the $80K-$82K region convincingly. Otherwise, the current move is more likely to be interpreted as temporary relief rather than a trend reversal.
Sentiment Analysis
The liquidation heatmap provides additional context supporting the corrective-bounce scenario. A notable concentration of short liquidations has accumulated above the current price, particularly within the $80K-$85K region.
Markets often gravitate toward nearby liquidity pools before resuming the prevailing trend. Therefore, Bitcoin may first move higher to absorb these leveraged short positions, potentially fueling a squeeze toward the $80K-$82K resistance area.
At the same time, substantial liquidity clusters remain below price around the $60K-$63K region, indicating that downside targets continue to exist if bearish momentum returns after the correction.
This creates a two-step scenario: an initial bullish retracement driven by liquidation hunting toward $80K-$82K, followed by renewed selling pressure and another bearish leg toward lower support levels. The interaction between price and these liquidity zones will likely determine Bitcoin’s next major move.
Ethereum (ETH) has shed nearly 30% of its market value so far this year. Despite numerous recovery attempts, its market performance throughout May remained weak. Growing fear and frustration around the asset have become increasingly visible across social media and market activity.
According to Santiment, the downturn has not been driven by a single major negative event, but rather by several bearish narratives building at the same time.
Bearish Narratives Spiral
One of the clearest signs highlighted by the firm was the rise in Ethereum’s social dominance even as prices continued falling. While higher social dominance can often signal strong bullish attention during rallies, Santiment noted that Ethereum’s discussion volume surged after its April 17 local top precisely when the asset began losing momentum.
Instead of conversations centered around optimism or new highs, social media discussions were increasingly focused on disappointment, frustration, and concerns about further downside. Santiment also flagged a steady deterioration in sentiment ratios on social media platforms.
During late April, Ethereum maintained relatively strong sentiment levels, as it recorded more than two bullish comments for every bearish one. However, that ratio gradually declined throughout May until bullish and bearish commentary became nearly equal. The firm said this kind of sentiment erosion typically indicates weakening trader confidence in an asset’s short-term outlook.
Ethereum’s weak price performance itself has been one of the biggest contributors to the negative mood. Many traders have increasingly viewed ETH as “dead money” compared to assets that have shown stronger momentum during 2026, Santiment said in its latest post.
While Bitcoin has continued attracting institutional confidence and newer ecosystems have drawn speculative interest, Ethereum has struggled to regain the market leadership role it held in previous cycles. ETF flows also added to bearish sentiment. Several Ethereum exchange-traded funds reportedly recorded continued outflows throughout May, including significant withdrawals from BlackRock-related funds.
Santiment added that days with more than $50 million in net inflows, once relatively common for Ethereum ETFs, have not occurred for almost three weeks. Although ETF flows often follow sentiment rather than predict it, retail traders frequently interpret outflows as evidence that institutions are losing confidence in the asset, which further adds to fears already created by falling prices.
Negative headlines surrounding the Ethereum Foundation also contributed to the change in market mood. Reports about researcher departures and ongoing exits from the ecosystem spread widely across social media. Many traders see them as signs of instability within Ethereum’s leadership and development community.
At the same time, viral rumors claiming prominent Ethereum figures, such as David Hoffman, were reducing or exiting their ETH holdings further fueled uncertainty, even when some reports lacked full context. Santiment said such narratives can spread rapidly in crypto markets, especially when traders begin fearing that insiders are abandoning positions before the broader market reacts.
Contrarian Setup?
Competition from other blockchain ecosystems has also intensified pressure on Ethereum’s reputation. Data showed Ethereum still leads the crypto industry in raw development activity, as it generates millions of GitHub events and maintains one of the largest developer communities in the sector.
However, retail traders have increasingly prioritized short-term price performance over long-term development strength, while ecosystems such as Solana and BNB Chain continue to attract speculative enthusiasm. On-chain activity has weakened as well, with both daily active addresses and network growth declining from the high levels seen during Ethereum’s strongest rallies in 2024 and 2025.
Despite the overwhelmingly bearish environment, the firm said extreme pessimism can sometimes point to exhaustion among traders and potentially emerge near major market turning points.
“Growing bearishness may eventually become constructive from a contrarian perspective. Historically, markets tend to punish the crowd when consensus becomes too one-sided. Ethereum is now reaching a point where social media discussion has become overwhelmingly focused on reasons to abandon the asset. “
A recent TradingView technical outlook suggests Bitcoin remains locked beneath a stubborn upper trendline resistance that continues to suppress bullish momentum. Despite several recovery attempts, BTC has repeatedly failed to break through the resistance zone, causing speculations that the price could push below $60,000.
Bitcoin Trapped Beneath A Heavy Ceiling
The TradingView chart highlights how this upper trendline has consistently acted as a ceiling for price action, rejecting Bitcoin each time buyers attempt to push higher. That resistance area also overlaps with key Fibonacci retracement levels, making it an increasingly important barrier within the current market structure.
Current price action appears to support that outlook. Bitcoin has struggled to sustain upside momentum and recently slipped lower after another rejection near the top of the rising formation. Attention is now shifting toward the $73,000 to $75,000 support region, which analysts view as critical for maintaining the broader bullish structure.
The setup also shows a narrowing wedge-like recovery structure developing after Bitcoin’s earlier selloff. However, rather than breaking upward decisively, BTC has started rolling over near resistance once again, signaling that the market still lacks the momentum needed to overpower the upper trendline.
This weakness is already becoming visible across broader market performance metrics. Bitcoin remains under pressure on higher timeframes and has recorded losses across the weekly and 14-day charts. For bullish momentum to regain strength, analysts say Bitcoin must finally break above the upper trendline resistance with strong conviction. Until that happens, the current price action continues to reinforce the idea that the trendline ceiling remains firmly in control of the market.
Can Bitcoin Crash Below $60,000?
While the dominant outlook favours Bitcoin breaking the upper trendline to regain bullish momentum, analysts are not dismissing the possibility of a much deeper flush if key supports collapse. The immediate downside focus sits between $69,000 and $66,000, where another major support region intersects with the rising trendline structure from previous swing lows. A move into that range would likely represent an aggressive but technically acceptable retracement within the broader cycle.
The more concerning scenario emerges if Bitcoin loses the $66,000 threshold entirely. According to the chart, that breakdown would invalidate the current ascending support framework and potentially trigger a broader risk-off reaction across crypto markets.
In that situation, volatility could increase rapidly. Liquidity gaps below current price levels may expose Bitcoin to a sharp capitulation move capable of driving price beneath $60,000 before stronger demand returns. There is also a hint at the possibility of a panic-driven wick stretching toward the low-$50,000 region if market conditions deteriorate aggressively.
For now, however, the market remains at an inflection point rather than in confirmed collapse. The behavior of buyers around the $73,000 to $75,000 area will likely determine whether Bitcoin resumes its climb toward six-figure territory or slides into a much deeper corrective phase.
Mark Cuban sold most of his Bitcoin because it failed to provide a hedge when fiat confidence weakened and geopolitical risk rose.
Cuban called it “not the hedge I expected it to be,” and the price record supports his frustration. Bitcoin traded around $77,663 in mid-May 2026, roughly 38% below the record high of $126,000 set in early October 2025.
Spot gold hit a record $5,594.82 on Jan. 29, while silver touched $121.64 the same day, driven by the same macro variables Cuban cited: inflation fears, dollar weakness, and geopolitical pressure.
World Gold Council data shows that gold demand in the first quarter reached 1,231 tonnes, including OTC, and the dollar value of quarterly demand jumped 74% year over year to a record $193 billion.
Central banks bought 244 tonnes net in the same period, and bar-and-coin demand hit 474 tonnes, up 42% year over year. Cuban also told Portfolio Players he is moving more money into Ethereum than Bitcoin, but the hedge critique is specific to Bitcoin.
Under the same macro backdrop of inflation fears and dollar weakness, gold hit a record $5,594.82 while Bitcoin traded 38% below its all-time high.
The ‘digital gold’ pitch always had a problem
Bitcoin.org describes the asset as peer-to-peer money with no central authority or banks and specifies that issuance halves over time, eventually stopping at 21 million Bitcoin. Nothing in that description commits Bitcoin to rising when geopolitical stress rises.
Cuban built a thesis on the “digital gold” narrative that the market constructed and the Bitcoin whitepaper never endorsed.
Bitcoin has traded as a liquidity-sensitive, high-beta asset that correlates with the Nasdaq during risk-off episodes and surges when risk appetite returns.
Last year, crypto moved with broader equities through the April tariff shock before Bitcoin hit its October record, then suffered a major leverage wipeout. More recently, Glassnode’s May 20 report describes Bitcoin as structurally resilient but notes that spot demand has weakened, ETF accumulation has slowed, and options positioning has turned defensive.
Cuban applied a gold benchmark to an asset that has never consistently moved like gold, and the resulting distance between what he expected and what the price did is what drove him to sell.
Test
Gold
Bitcoin
Crisis behavior
Cleaner panic shelter
Often sells off with risk assets
Volatility profile
Lower, more established
Much higher, adoption-sensitive
Main demand driver
Inflation fear, geopolitics, central banks
ETF flows, liquidity, regulation, leverage cycles
Monetary property
No issuer, physical scarcity
21M cap, no central issuer, permissionless transfer
Best framing
Crisis shelter now
Monetary optionality later
Bitcoin long-term holder supply rose by over 2 million BTC during the current drawdown, reaching 16.3 million BTC, with roughly 200,000 BTC added in the past month alone. Cuban is judging Bitcoin by whether it acts like gold in a crisis, while long-term holders are judging it by whether the network still functions and the supply cap holds ten years from now.
A hedge reduces portfolio risk during stress events with some consistency, but Bitcoin’s realized volatility runs far above gold’s, its price responds to ETF flows, regulatory headlines, and leverage cycles, and it has repeatedly correlated with equity drawdowns during acute stress.
Those are the mechanics of an early-stage monetary network still pricing in adoption uncertainty, with an asset that may be powerful over a long horizon precisely because it is too volatile and too liquidity-sensitive to function as a short-term panic hedge.
Investors reach for Bitcoin, if the adoption thesis holds, when they expect the monetary system itself to look different in the next decade. The fixed supply, permissionless transferability, and absence of a central issuer are the properties that make Bitcoin worth considering as long-duration monetary optionality.
The distance between $58,000 and $165,000
Citi’s March 2026 forecast is a 12-month base target of $112,000, a recessionary downside of $58,000, and a bull case of $165,000, which captures how wide the resulting uncertainty runs.
Glassnode places the Realized Price near $54,900 as a lower structural boundary, while the $70,000 level carries weight as the pre-election anchor.
Scenario
BTC level / range
Market logic
Narrative outcome
Structural floor
~$54,900
Realized Price lower boundary
Break below here weakens the adoption case
Recessionary bear case
$58,000
Higher yields, ETF outflows, weak spot demand
Bitcoin trades like a de-risking asset
Key anchor
$70,000
Pre-election reference level
Market tests whether support is real
Base case
$112,000
Citi 12-month target
Bitcoin survives as volatile monetary optionality
Bull case
$165,000
ETF demand, regulation, risk appetite recover
Adoption thesis absorbs the hedge failure
In the bear case, higher yields, continued ETF outflows, and weak spot demand keep Bitcoin pinned near structural support.
Bitcoin trades like a de-risking asset, fails to distinguish itself from the broader risk-off environment, and gold continues to absorb the crisis-hedge flows that Bitcoin’s marketing promised to capture.
In the bull case, ETF demand recovers, regulatory progress in the US provides institutions with cleaner on-ramps, and risk appetite returns enough to push Bitcoin back through the $112,000 Citi target and toward $165,000.
Bitcoin survives the critique by operating as a scarce, borderless, permissionless monetary network that gains value as more institutions and sovereigns want an asset outside traditional finance.
The 21 million supply cap and the absence of a central issuer are the properties that make Bitcoin worth holding as a long-duration bet on monetary distrust becoming infrastructure, and those properties held through the same drawdown Cuban is citing as proof of failure.
Bitcoin’s actual case rests on offering exposure to a world where more people want money outside the traditional system, which holds regardless of how Bitcoin performs against gold in any given crisis.
Bitcoin as a call option on monetary distrust
Cuban wanted Bitcoin to act like a predictable and consistent protection against the specific risks he saw coming.
Yet, Bitcoin may be closer to a call option on monetary distrust: valuable if the thesis plays out over a decade, volatile in the meantime, and a poor substitute for gold during acute stress.
Gold is still the cleaner crisis asset by every recent measure, shown through record prices, record quarterly demand value, sustained central bank buying, and consistent performance against the macro variables that define genuine panic.
The asset Cuban sold most of his stake still has a 21 million supply cap, still operates without a central issuer, and still accumulated 200,000 BTC of long-term holder supply in the past month.
Whether that is enough to justify the price range of $58,000 to $165,000 over the next year depends on whether the adoption thesis can replenish what the hedge thesis has lost.
