Crypto analyst Bob Loukas released a new video analysis titled “Without Bull”. In the video, Loukas delves into the current state of the Bitcoin market, addressing growing concerns about the possibility of a canceled bull run.
Loukas begins by acknowledging the prolonged period of Bitcoin price consolidation. He feels that “there is now some fear creeping into the market,” in part due to factors such as the Bitcoin ETF being “out of circulation for some time” and the halving having “come and go” without leading to a significant movement of shares. rising prices.
Has Bitcoin Bull been run over?
Loukas notes that while traditional markets are performing robustly – with “the stock market hitting all-time highs seemingly every week” and “even gold hitting huge all-time highs” – Bitcoin continues to “languish” and altcoins are “practically dying”. a slow death.” He notes that “the only thing that really works is speculative memecoins”, contributing to the negative sentiment in the crypto space.
However, he considers this development “kind of normal,” emphasizing that despite these challenges, Bitcoin remains “close to the all-time highs of the previous cycle.” Discussing the eight months of Bitcoin price consolidation, Loukas interprets this period as a bullish sign. “Eight months of consolidation is actually quite optimistic if the timing is right in the four-year cycle. The feeling is right, it has been redefined; fundamentals, macro, I think they all seem right,” he says.
Related Reading
Loukas further highlights that the market is “23 months later” from the lows of the last cycle in November 2022, “just before the 24-month or 2-year anniversary of this cycle”, which should end around November-December. ETF Approval leak in September-October 2023 to peak in March 2024.
One of the main fears, according to Loukas, is that Bitcoin reached its last all-time high seven months ago, in March, and since then, “we have been forming these lower highs for the month and also, to some extent, a lower low.” . structure.” This created anxiety among investors who “entered the market too late, waiting for confirmation,” only to find themselves “locked in when the market entered this five-month straight move,” without providing an opportunity to buy during a dip. .
He points out that a lot of investors “got into a bunch of altcoins in this later period that are now down 50, 60, 70%,” leading to a situation where, despite Bitcoin “still being about 3x off the lows,” a lot of people they feel that they did not “extract any kind of value from this cycle” or even “lost money during this period”. Loukas considers this scenario “quite normal from the point of view of the cycle structure”.
He emphasizes that during this bull phase, the market did not experience a “typical 30% decline at any point,” with the “bigger declines” being “primarily time-based and were only about 20% from peak to trough before making a new high. This atypical behavior “aroused a lot of people” and “made it difficult for people to enter”, as they were “looking to buy in a drop that never actually happened”.
Loukas suggests that the current consolidation is a necessary phase to “completely reset sentiment in order to prepare for the next phase of this four-year cycle.” He finds it significant that Bitcoin has been “sitting here for 23 months, just about 20% below the all-time highs of the last four-year cycle in 2021,” which makes him feel “more prepared for the next phase of the four-year cycle.” years than anything else.”
He also draws parallels to previous cycles, noting that from the cycle low in December 2018 to the first point at which Bitcoin reached a new high, “it took 23 months to reach the four-year cycle high price to surpass this value.” Similar patterns were observed in previous cycles, with time frames of “about 25 months” and “about 22 months” to reach new all-time highs. In contrast, the current cycle reached this milestone “in just 16 months, much sooner,” which he largely attributes to ETF news that “forced buyers into the cycle earlier than usual.”
Loukas believes this accelerated timeline has created a dynamic where “now we have to spin a lot of coins,” allowing “a lot of whales, a lot of veterans” to “unlock” and “go out and spin,” while “institutional players, bigger account players have accumulated these coins in this period.” He sees this as “a matter of time more than anything else”, interpreting the current period as a process where the market “ends up erasing all that bullish sentiment” from the previous phase, thus allowing “a complete separation of one phase of the cycle for this phase of the cycle” – essentially a “mid-cycle decline”.
When will BTC price break out?
Overall, Loukas remains quite optimistic: “So far in this four year cycleI don’t see anything that has changed this trajectory, nothing in the profile or structure that tells me that this cycle is different from the last cycles.”
He cites several factors that support his bullish outlook, including “massive Bitcoin inflows, primarily from institutional participants” and the absorption of large sales by entities such as “the German government” and the US government”, which did not significantly impact the price. Loukas emphasizes that “the price only fell by 20%; It’s well supported.” He also mentions that “the ETF still exists; will be pushed through the channels of independent consultants” and “the time has come; the macro, the fundamentals are there.”
Loukas is particularly excited about cyclical patterns, noting that “the third year of each of these four cycles is where the magic happens.” He explains that “the first year surprises everyone, it opens up a lot of ground. The second year appears to stagnate because it consolidates the first year of gains. And the third year is the year of mania. And now, starting next month, we have the year of mania coming.”
Related Reading
He predicts that “in the next 90 days… we will move out of this consolidation range; Let’s move on to the positive.” When that happens, he believes Bitcoin “will not look back,” anticipating a period that “may only see one or two monthly red candles and mostly green candles.” While he refrains from providing specific price targets, he acknowledges that hitting “somewhere between $120,000 and $180,000 also seems very reasonable.”
Loukas emphasizes that the focus should be on “timing and sentiment”, aiming for a move “in the range where previous cycles peaked”, which has been “very consistent around month 35 since the last low”. This timing would place the projected peak around “October 2025,” giving “an additional 12 months for an expected or projected peak.” He notes that this is not set in stone and that the peak could occur “three, four, five months in advance” as market movements “can have many different flavors.”
Turning to the immediate future, Loukas admits that the next two months will be “a little murky”, with “a lot of factors still at play at the moment”. He mentions the upcoming US elections on November 4th, mentioning that “Trump and the Republican Party have really been promoting crypto and Bitcoin,” and that “the market will certainly respond very, very favorably to a Republican Party election victory, purely because of their stance on crypto.” However, he clarifies that he doesn’t think it “matters at all” who wins, as Bitcoin has thrived even when “governments have been very hostile towards it.”
Loukas speculates that the market could “have a sideways trend in this period of November” and that a significant movement may not occur until the end of the elections. He suggests that “we still have about three to four weeks of some sideways action” and would be “highly surprised if this market manages to reach $70,000 before the election here in the US.”
At press time, BTC traded at $60,699.
Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com