)
Calling the beginning of February 2026 a volatile week across financial markets would be…a bit of an understatement. Over the month's first few days, we witnessed gold – renowned for its historically low volatility – drop 10% in a matter of hours, only for silver to eclipse the decline in its own near-30% one-day fall. The fall in gold was the biggest single-day fall in over 30 years, and the drop in silver was the biggest 24-hour slump since March 1980.
Cryptocurrencies weren’t immune to the uncertainty, with BTC tumbling below $80k USD ($110k AUD), its lowest price point since September 2025. All up, the top twenty digital assets by combined market cap fell 16% in the first four days of February.
So now, there’s one question starting to pop up across crypto communities: Are we in a bear market, or has the cycle shifted into something else?
Historic ‘bear markets’
The standard economic definition for a bear market is when asset prices fall more than 20% from their cycle tops and hold this position for a sustained period (usually three months).
Cryptocurrency winters tend to see more price suppression than other markets. When we look at previous cycles, the average difference between the top and bottom of Bitcoin’s price is 80%, lasting for around 12 months.
)
The current state of play
Bitcoin’s price has closed in the red for four consecutive months (November 2025 to January 2026). The last time this happened was in 2018.
Naturally, past cycles are not a reliable indicator of what may happen going forward.
If, however, we do assume history will repeat itself, that would suggest the crypto scene has entered a bear market, with volatility to continue until around November 2026. A 70% fall from BTC’s previous record high (a figure based on previous bear markets), would imply significantly lower price levels than we see today at approximately $76k USD.
However, this analysis is based on historical indicators – crypto markets have evolved and many of the overall market dynamics are different.
While diminishing exchange trade volumes (down 46% from October’s peak, according to The Block) and weak altcoin price action may be indicators of a bear market, there is reason to believe that conditions might be different this time around.
Cryptocurrency has never experienced a winter with the level of institutional adoption it currently has. Over $100 billion USD is held in spot BTC ETFs alone, while another approximately $30+ billion USD is distributed among non-Strategy crypto treasuries.
At the same time, governments are exploring crypto legislation to provide regulatory clarity, aiming to boost consumer protections and clarify the crossroads of TradFi and DeFi.
A fast-moving economic environment is also likely playing a role in the current volatility, with geopolitical tensions rising across several regions, while the USD has fallen to its lowest point since 2022.
Calling the current state of play a crypto bear market is a reasonable interpretation given the data. However, historic four-year cycle performances may not be an accurate indicator of what is to come, given the significant changes to both digital assets and the global economy as a whole.
What do the analysts say
Analysts across the industry are split on whether the current price decline is part of a bigger crypto winter, or a consolidation period within a market less susceptible to the gruelling icy conditions of cycles past.
In 2025, Elliott Wave analyst and CIO of Ledn, John Glover, suggested BTC would experience a 40% decline from its all-time high, with bearish conditions potentially lasting until late this year – a projection that has tracked with recent market movements.
Swyftx partner and The Investor Accelerator founder Jason Pizzino similarly believes we are firmly entrenched in a bear market.
That said, several major institutions remain firm in their view that current price struggles are a pullback rather than a structural collapse in demand.
Swyftx’s very own Lead Market Analyst Pav Hundal believes that the current market rotation into gold and precious metals may be coming to an end. In an interview with Cointelegraph, Hundal pointed out that:
‘Bitcoin bottoms have historically lagged gold’s relative strength by about 14 months...If history repeats, and it is a big if, the gold-Bitcoin dynamic points to a potential BTC bottom forming over the next 40 days.’
Both Cathie Wood (ARK Invest) and Matt Hougan (Bitwise) have suggested that the four-year cycle is breaking down, and that ETF flows have pulled crypto away from the bull/bear dynamic that has marked its history.
In fact, Hougan argued that the current bear market didn’t start in October 2025, or 2026. Instead, he believes the winter crept in following the election of Donald Trump, with heavy institutional involvement obscuring the market.
‘Retail crypto has been in a brutal winter since January 2025. Institutions just papered over that truth for certain assets for a while.’
A survey from Coinbase and Glassnode, released earlier this week, claimed that just 1 in 4 institutions believed the crypto market was officially bearish, with the majority (70%) also arguing that BTC was still ‘undervalued’.
So, like most things in finance, there isn’t a clear answer to even a theoretically simple question like ‘Are we in a bear market?’. Many analysts suggest that the early stages of 2026 may be tough for Bitcoin and other digital currencies (which we’ve seen unfolding), but there is less consensus that the landscape is freezing over like in previous cycles.
What happens next is anybody’s guess, so it’s as important as ever to stay educated, consider your own personal circumstances and approach the market with a clear understanding of risk. As a word of caution, it is worth monitoring what impact US economic policy might have as they approach the midterms in November, and what impact they could have on the market.