Bitcoin has just passed its toughest exam in four years, and the market is still underestimating what the result means.
For most of its history, the 200-week moving average has acted as a floor. Bitcoin has traded above it 92% of the time.
When the price sliced through the line this year, slipping briefly below $60,000, the bears finally got the moment they had been forecasting since 2022.
They had their opening and they couldn’t hold it.
The price has since climbed around $20,000 off that level. The rebound itself is welcome, but how it happened tells us far more.
In earlier cycles, a break of this kind would have set off a cascade. Forced selling would have fed on itself, leveraged positions would have been wiped out in waves, and the asset would have spent months, sometimes years, clawing its way back.
This time the break was brief, the selling was absorbed, and buyers were waiting.
They were waiting because the ownership of Bitcoin has changed.
A decade ago, the market was dominated by retail traders, early adopters and speculators chasing momentum.
Today, a growing share of supply sits with long-horizon holders: listed companies carrying it on their balance sheets, regulated funds, family offices, and wealthy individuals who treat it as a strategic allocation.
These holders behave differently. They tend to buy weakness and don’t panic at a red candle. Many judge success over five or 10 years rather than five or 10 days.
When this kind of capital controls a rising share of the float, the character of the whole market shifts. Drawdowns get shallower, recoveries come faster, and the violent swings that kept cautious money away for a decade start to soften.
And when the swings soften, more cautious money arrives.
Bears keep underestimating this feedback loop. Every time Bitcoin survives a shock that once would have floored it, the case for owning it grows stronger in the eyes of institutions that need stability before they commit.
Pension funds, endowments and insurers operate under strict risk limits. Lower volatility is what gets an asset past their investment committees.
Supply is pushing in the same direction. The 2024 halving cut the rate of new issuance in half. Long-term holders are sitting tight.
By most measures, the coins readily available to buy on the open market are becoming scarcer, while each recovery from a deep test pulls in a fresh wave of buyers who had been sitting on the sidelines.
Add the steady arrival of regulated investment products in major markets, which make it simpler for ordinary savers and professional allocators alike to gain exposure, and the base of potential demand is broader than at any point in Bitcoin’s history.
Tightening supply meeting widening demand is about as simple as economics gets.
None of this means the road ahead will be smooth. Bitcoin remains a volatile asset, and anyone who claims otherwise hasn’t been paying attention. Sharp falls will come again, and macroeconomic shocks, from interest-rate surprises to political upheaval, will keep moving the price.
But volatility and fragility are two very different things.
A fragile market breaks when it’s tested. Bitcoin was tested at precisely the level where a break would have done the most psychological damage, and it bounced back hard.
The bull market of the coming years is likely to look different from the ones before it.
Fewer parabolic spikes and fewer catastrophic crashes seem probable, with steadier climbs driven by allocation decisions made in boardrooms rather than frenzies on social media.
The bears spent four years waiting for the 200-week line to give way. When it finally did, the market answered with buyers instead of panic.
For an asset still dismissed in some quarters as a speculative fad, it’s hard to imagine a louder vote of confidence.
Author Bio
Nigel Green is deVere Group CEO and Founder
Disclaimer: This article is for information purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any asset. The value of investments can fall as well as rise, and cryptoassets are highly volatile. Readers should seek independent professional advice before making any investment decision.