#比特币下一步怎么走？ Will Bitcoin in a bear market continue to fall to $20,000?

These days, various community groups are discussing how low Bitcoin might go during the bear market. Some say it could drop to between $44,000 and $55,000, others suggest it might be between $30,000 and $40,000, and some even say $20,000 to $30,000. While there are different opinions on the specific price ranges, one thing seems clear: everyone appears to be preparing (some have already started) for a new round of bear market positioning.

Regarding the price during the bear market, at this stage, no one can definitively say whether Bitcoin will really drop to $40,000 in 2026. The current decline from $126,000 to $40,000 is a 68% drop, which theoretically puts it near that level. In extreme cases, Bitcoin could even see prices around $30,000.
If your most pressing question now is: what is the lowest price Bitcoin might reach? What price is suitable for bottom fishing? Then our advice remains: don’t pursue perfection in trading, don’t always think you can sell at the highest point and buy at the lowest point in one go. Instead of constantly trying to guess the bottom or just focusing on the price, it’s better to shift your thinking more towards timing, because time can be more brutal than price.

Let’s briefly review past bear markets. For example, in 2022, Bitcoin started declining from a high of $69,000. The decline in the first half of the year reached 61%, with the price bottoming out around $26,000. At that time, it had already broken below the June 2021 low. I remember many people shouting to buy the dip online.
But Bitcoin continued to fall from around $26,000 to $17,000, trapping many who relied solely on others’ opinions for their bottom fishing, resulting in a 34% unrealized loss. Those trapped then started FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt), and later, the market quieted down and stopped talking about it. Meanwhile, new voices kept emerging, claiming that $17,000 was a safe bottom and urging to buy the dip!
We all know what happened next: Bitcoin didn’t reverse at $17,000. After more than half a year of consolidation, it continued to decline to around $15,000. For those who listened to others’ calls and bought the dip, this period was long and brutal.
In the last bull cycle, Bitcoin fell from $69,000 to $15,000 over approximately 370 days, a decline of about 78%. Besides a few who managed to hold on through disciplined trading and long-term belief, many couldn’t endure this long process and gradually sold off or even left.
But do you think the pain of this year-long ordeal was the end? Not at all! From November 2022 (when Bitcoin was around $15,000) to November 2023, we endured another year of suffering before a new bull cycle officially began.
In fact, anyone who has experienced market hardship should know that, compared to the brutality of rapid declines, the longer-lasting pain is even more cruel. The real horror of a bear market isn’t the quick drop, but the endless decline, and even after it’s over, you still have to endure a long period of patience.
In the last cycle, from peak to trough, we experienced over 370 days of decline; from the bottom to the start of the new bull market, we went through more than 330 days of sideways consolidation.
Time, not price, is the true bottom of a bear market.

Now, back to the present. Since Bitcoin reached a new high of $126,000 in October 2025, it has been in a downtrend. If we look at the timeline, we’ve only experienced about 120 days of decline so far. The truly grueling bear market may just be beginning. If no new black swan events occur, based on the current pace, the relative bottom of this cycle could appear in the third or fourth quarter of this year.
From a macro perspective, this timing is also quite interesting. The Federal Reserve will change its chair in May this year. The nominee, Kevin Warsh, is more hawkish, but he is quite different from the current Fed Chair Powell. Warsh’s core stance is: support for lower interest rates than the current level, but rate cuts require a change in framework. He prefers to reduce the Fed’s balance sheet and alter policy frameworks to create space for future rate cuts. In plain language, Warsh hopes to shrink the balance sheet first and then cut rates.
Therefore, if Warsh indeed becomes the new Fed Chair in May, the general scenario (note: this is just hypothetical, not investment advice) might be:
Before May, the market continues mainly sideways/downward, with some rebound opportunities (perhaps reaching around $77,000).
From May to August, the market may enter a difficult consolidation phase again.
By the end of Q3 or Q4, a macro shift could begin to emerge, and we can then observe and adjust our strategies accordingly.
As for how to best utilize the potentially long bear market, it depends on your risk appetite and position size.

Taking Li Si as an example, here’s a simple expansion:
1) If Li Si is optimistic and continues to hold a long-term bullish view on Bitcoin, or if Li Si’s goal isn’t just short-term trading but also building a long-term reserve (HODLing), then Li Si can start accumulating in batches at any time. Or, if Li Si already has some holdings, he can patiently wait for the $40,000–$50,000 opportunity. I’ve noticed that this range seems to be a common bottom-fishing target among many people (including some KOLs).
2) If Li Si is neutral (neither optimistic nor pessimistic) and feels that the $40,000–$50,000 range doesn’t match his psychological expectations, he can focus on the potential level around $35,000. The average cost basis of long-term holders (LTH) on-chain is roughly in the $30,000–$40,000 range, so $35,000 is a relatively balanced point.
3) If Li Si is pessimistic but still believes in a future bull market, then around $28,000 might be the “limit” position we can see now (possibly requiring a new black swan event, like a major institution collapsing or a policy shift by the Fed).
In theory, if the bear market continues for a longer period, Bitcoin’s 200-week moving average in 2026–2027 could be in the $28,000–$35,000 range. The $28,000 level might then be the optimal bottom-fishing point (but whether it can reach that level depends on market validation).

But we need to understand a fundamental logic: for good long-term assets, the purchase price isn’t the most important factor; timing is. To put it simply, if you can’t grasp the decline during a bear market, you’re likely to miss the rally in the next bull market, or even end up standing on the peak again during the next cycle.
In other words, the specific buy point for Bitcoin doesn’t determine your future investment returns; holding onto your position does.
In recent years, we’ve seen many people lucky or skilled enough to buy at the bottom, but ultimately, they all got caught in the bear market and didn’t even see the dawn of a new bull cycle. As ordinary investors, we don’t need to always buy at the lowest and sell at the highest. Instead, it’s better to stay within a reasonable range you can afford, avoid over-leveraging when unnecessary, and use time to generate returns.