Bitcoin Bottom Is In, Says Mow — Charts Warn of $40K

That, he says, breaks the script.

For years, the four-year halving cycle has been treated as gospel — price tops roughly a year after each halving, bottoms arrive on schedule, rinse and repeat. Mow is calling that obsolete.

I find it incredibly interesting how some people are so certain that the bottom is coming in four months because of cycles, Mow wrote. But we had an ATH 37 days before the halving, so even if you believe in cycles, you should reason out that the cycles accelerated. The bottom is in.

His logic is internally consistent: if the top came early, the bottom did too. And Mow is not a random account. He is the former chief strategy officer at Adam Back's Blockstream, known for his $1 million bitcoin prediction and his work pushing nation-state adoption, including El Salvador's bitcoin program.

So when he plants a flag, people look. But conviction is not a price floor — and that is where this gets uncomfortable.

The analysts looking at the same chart see something worse

Mow is not even the first to argue the cycle changed. After bitcoin ran to a record before the 2024 halving, several analysts floated the idea that spot bitcoin ETF demand from big institutions had rewired the old pattern. Others said it was far too soon to call.

That debate never got settled. And the people who model bottoms for a living are now split into two camps that barely overlap.

Here is how the field actually lines up right now:

Notice the spread. From we already bottomed to we still have $20,000 to give back. That is not a rounding error. That is the entire difference between buying today and getting cut in half.

So who has the better argument?

Let me be direct: the bearish case is built on more machinery, and that matters.

CoinDesk's Omkar Godbole actually leans bullish using a contrarian signal — bitcoin's 50-week average is about to cross below its 100-week average, a bear cross that has historically lined up with market bottoms, not tops. It sounds scary, prints green later. That partially supports Mow.

But the heavier hitters point the other way. Markus Thielen of 10x Research pegs the likely bottom near $55,000, and not until somewhere between August and October — months away, lower than now. Arthur Hayes is blunter, calling for roughly $40,000 within six months.

Then there is the indicator that should worry holders most. CoinDesk senior analyst James Van Straten notes bitcoin is testing its 200-week moving average, and on-chain data flags the $50,000 to $54,000 zone as the next battleground.

His sharpest point is historical. In every major bear market since 2011, bitcoin eventually traded below its realized price before carving out a real cycle bottom. This time, it has not done that yet.

That is the uncomfortable gap in Mow's call. A clean bottom usually leaves a specific footprint in the data. So far, that footprint is missing.

What this means for your stack

You do not have to pick a guru. You have to manage risk while smart people openly disagree. Here is how to think about it without getting wrecked by either side.

• Treat single-person bottom calls as opinions, not signals. Mow may be right. He is also famous for a $1 million target that has not landed. Conviction is not data.
• Watch the realized price test. Van Straten's point is the most checkable one here: historically, bitcoin dips under realized price before a durable low. If that has not happened, the cleanest bottom signal has not fired.
• Mark the $50,000 to $54,000 zone. Multiple independent analysts keep landing near it. When unrelated models converge on one band, that band matters.
• Do not deploy your whole position on a tweet. If you believe Mow, scaling in beats going all-in. If he is wrong, you still have ammunition at $40,000.
• Separate timeframe from price. Thielen's call is not just a number, it is a clock — August to October. A bottom that is real but four months away is still four months of pain if you are overexposed now.

What happens next (24 to 72 hours)

Expect the disagreement to get louder, not quieter. With bitcoin under $60,000 and staring down a back-to-back quarterly loss, every move toward $54,000 will be read as either confirmation that the lower targets are coming or a successful retest that proves Mow right.

Watch two things specifically: whether price holds above that $50,000 to $54,000 band, and whether on-chain realized price finally gets breached. The first tells you if the bulls are defending. The second tells you if the textbook bottom signal is even on the table yet.

Mow says it is over. The charts say not so fast. Until bitcoin either reclaims momentum or prints that missing realized-price flush, this is not a settled call — it is a live one, and your sizing should reflect that.

Source: CoinDesk