Bitcoin trades at about $80,600, 35 % below its high of 6 October 2025. Is that a pullback in a bull market, or has the bear market long begun?
The answer depends on how you define a bull market. Here is a rule that needs no indicator and measures the same thing on every daily chart since 2010. By that rule the last bull market ended on 20 November 2025, after 378 days. That is the shortest of five.
Only one half of it got shorter, though. And not the half you would expect.
A rule in two sentences
- Start: the first daily close above the old all-time high.
- End: the first day the price falls to a level it first reached more than a year earlier.
That is all. The rule asks two things: are there new highs, and how old is the price bitcoin trades at today? As long as the price sits above everything it had already seen a year ago, the bull market runs. Once it falls back to prices that are a year old, it is over.
The familiar lines between bull and bear market, the Bull Market Support Band (BMSB) or the 50-week moving average, compare the price with its own average. This rule compares it with its history: is bitcoin still above everything it had already seen a year ago? How the BMSB holds up as an exit rule is here.
Computed on Coin Metrics daily closes from July 2010.
Five bull markets, and the last two were short
| Bull market | Start | Top | End | Length | Start to top | Top to end |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010–12 | 9 Oct 2010 | 8 Jun 2011 | 10 May 2012 | 578 days | 242 | 336 |
| 2013–14 | 19 Feb 2013 | 4 Dec 2013 | 15 Nov 2014 | 633 days | 288 | 345 |
| 2017–18 | 26 Apr 2017 | 16 Dec 2017 | 1 Nov 2018 | 553 days | 234 | 319 |
| 2020–22 | 16 Dec 2020 | 8 Nov 2021 | 20 Jan 2022 | 399 days | 327 | 72 |
| 2024–25 | 6 Nov 2024 | 6 Oct 2025 | 20 Nov 2025 | 378 days | 334 | 44 |
The first three ran 553 to 633 days, the last two 378 and 399. That is roughly 200 days less.
Look at the two right-hand columns. The climb to the top took 8 to 11 months every time, and the last one took longest. All of the shortening sits after the top: almost a year before, ten weeks in 2021, six weeks in 2025.
The climb did not get shorter. Only the end comes sooner.
Is that because bitcoin now crashes faster after the top?
After the top, bitcoin now falls more slowly
You might guess so: more leverage, more ETF money, more people heading for the exit at once, so a faster crash. The numbers show the opposite.
| Top | Days to −20 % | to −30 % | to −40 % | to −50 % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 2011 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 26 |
| December 2013 | 2 | 3 | 12 | 14 |
| December 2017 | 5 | 14 | 31 | 47 |
| November 2021 | 18 | 35 | 74 | 182 |
| October 2025 | 39 | 45 | 121 | 242 |
Up to 2017, bitcoin was 40 % below its top within a month. In 2025 that took four months. At every step, the price fell more slowly in the recent cycles.
The old tops fell harder and faster. They just had much more room below them.
If the fall is not faster, why does the bull market end sooner?
The cushion got thinner
The rule ends when the price falls to a level that is a year old. How far that is from the top depends on the climb before it.
| Top | Top vs price one year earlier | Drop from top on the end day |
|---|---|---|
| June 2011 | 338×¹ | −83 % |
| December 2013 | 85× | −67 % |
| December 2017 | 25× | −68 % |
| November 2021 | 4.4× | −40 % |
| October 2025 | 2.0× | −30 % |
¹ Coin Metrics starts on 18 Jul 2010, 325 days before the top.
In 2017, bitcoin's top stood 25 times above the price a year earlier. To fall back to year-old prices it had to lose two thirds, and that took almost a year. In 2025 it stood only twice as high as a year earlier. A 30 % drop was enough.
That is the mechanism behind the 44 days. A flat climb leaves little distance to last year's prices. An ordinary decline is then enough to get there.
A flatter climb falls back to old prices sooner.
That leaves the question whether the rule itself measures cleanly.
One weak spot: false starts right after the breakout
The rule has a gap you should know about. Right after a new all-time high, the old high sits just below, and it is often years old. If the price dips back under it, it is at a level from years ago, and the rule ends the bull market within days.
That happened three times:
- 23 Feb 2017: new high, back below the 2013 high after 15 days
- 30 Nov 2020: new high, back below it the next day
- 4 Mar 2024 and 8 Mar 2024: two breakouts, ended after one and after eight days
The table above counts from the breakout that held. Count from the first one, and the last three bull markets run 615, 415 and 625 days. The finding does not change: the time after the top stays the same.
The false starts move the beginning, not the end.
Where bitcoin stands by this rule today
- Price $80,588 (24 Oct 2026). Bitcoin first reached that price on 11 November 2024, 712 days ago.
- Bear market since 20 November 2025, 338 days.
- The next bull market starts with the first daily close above $124,824.
For comparison, the four completed bear phases, each up to the first close above the old high: 285, 831, 760 and 774 days. Four cases that tell you what happened. They do not tell you what comes next.
By this rule, the bull market has been over for eleven months.
What to do with it
Fix your definition before you read the next headline. "The bull market has another year in it" and "we are in a bear market" can both be true, depending on what is measured. This rule is one option. Its advantage: you can check it on any day.
Plan for the flatter climb. In the early cycles, a 30 % drop was a pullback in the middle of a bull market. Today it takes the price back to year-old levels, and by this rule that is the end. Carrying expectations from 2013 or 2017 means waiting for a cushion that is no longer there.
The next cycle will test it. If bitcoin again only doubles against the year before, the next bull market would also be over a few weeks after its top.
How this was measured
Coin Metrics daily closes (Community, PriceUSD) from 18 Jul 2010 to 22 Oct 2026; in 2010 and 2011 that is essentially the Mt. Gox price. Cross-check with Bitstamp daily closes: from 2017 on the same tops and, within one day, the same start and end dates. The Bitstamp series only starts in August 2011; it does not cover the first cycle, and because its 2011 high was lower, the second cycle starts there in December 2012. Length counted without the end day. The rule was fixed before anything was computed; no parameter was searched.
FAQ
Why exactly one year? Because the rule says so, not because it fits best. Cross-check with 540 days: the time from top to end is 404 to 535 days in the first three cycles and 121 and 216 in the last two. Same picture. With 180 days the cycles break into short pieces; with 730 days 2011 and 2013 merge into one.
Why not Binance data, as elsewhere on the platform? Binance has only listed bitcoin since August 2017. Five cycles need a series from 2010.
Is a 30 % drop now always the end? No. How far the price has to fall depends on how high it stood a year earlier. The 30 % applies to the 2024–25 cycle.
Not investment advice, not a recommendation, not a forecast — historical patterns are no promise.
Study the Past — Improve your Future 🥋