PlanB Lays Out Four Bitcoin Bear-Market Scenarios

PlanB, the pseudonymous analyst behind the stock-to-flow mannequin, says bitcoin’s drawdown has left markets watching 4 believable bear-market paths, starting from a traditional 80% drawdown to the chance that the lows are already in.

In a submit on X and a follow-up video dated Feb. 4, PlanB framed the controversy round the place bitcoin sometimes finds bear-market bottoms relative to long-term pattern metrics, whereas additionally arguing that the earlier rally’s lack of momentum may translate right into a shallower reset this time.

Bitcoin closed January at $78,000, he stated, marking a roughly 40% decline from the cycle’s all-time excessive at $126,000. On his chart, the 200-week transferring common closed at $58,000 and realized worth at $55,000, with the January RSI ending at 49, a stage he treats as a regime shift.

“RSI right here, 49. RSI, as , is an index between 0 and 100. And the whole lot above 50 is an uptrend. All the pieces beneath 50 is downtrend,” PlanB stated. “So 49 is beneath 50, it’s downtrend. It’s a bear market… much like 2014–15, 2018–19 and 2022–23.”

Associated Studying

4 Bitcoin Bear Market Eventualities

From there, he outlined 4 situations for the way the drawdown may evolve. The primary is the historic “worst case” that also sits in merchants’ psychological fashions: an 80% drop from the highest. With an ATH of $126,000, PlanB stated that may suggest a transfer to roughly $25,000 — “someplace right here between these two strains” on his chart, even when he acknowledged it might “look actually actually odd.”

The second state of affairs is extra typical by his personal backtests: a backside across the 200-week transferring common and realized worth, which he pegged within the $50,000–$60,000 stage. PlanB pointed to prior cycles the place worth finally “drop[s] to the transferring common realized worth ranges,” highlighting 2022 and 2015 as examples the place the RSI trough coincided with these long-term anchors.

The third state of affairs is shallower nonetheless: a retrace that stops simply above the prior cycle’s all-time excessive, round $69,000–$70,000. PlanB’s reasoning is that the previous bull part regarded muted in his indicators, which may compress the magnitude of the bear.

“So what I feel is… as a result of the bull market was very weak… it didn’t have the pink dots, the excessive RSI peaks,” he stated. “Due to that, the bear market may very well be very shallow. And that may imply, for instance, going again to the extent or simply be above the extent of the… earlier all-time excessive, which was 69,000.”

Associated Studying

The fourth state of affairs is the one merchants all the time need on their screens: that the market already printed its low. PlanB wrote that “yesterday’s $72.9k was the underside,” and reiterated within the video that “perhaps the $72.800 that we noticed a pair days in the past was already the underside.” Notably, the BTC worth already dropped to $70,140 on Wednesday, invalidating this state of affairs.

IMO there are 4 bitcoin bear market situations:
1) -80% from ATH $126k => $25k
2) all the way down to 200w MA / realized worth => $50k-60k
3) down to simply above earlier ATH => $70k
4) yesterday’s $72.9k was the underside

I focus on these state of affairs’s in my new video:
👉 https://t.co/mXSxJK9LLx

— PlanB (@100trillionUSD) February 4, 2026

PlanB additionally revisited his stock-to-flow framework, saying it stays at $500,000 as a worth sign derived from shortage whereas stressing it isn’t constructed to name turning factors. “Inventory to stream says nothing about tops and bottoms,” he stated, including that it speaks to “the four-year common” and periodic “part transition each 4 or 5 years.”

That caveat arrange his remaining level: the cycle template could also be shifting. PlanB famous that in his four-year-cycle view, the height traditionally lands within the first or second 12 months after a halving, however “it didn’t occur after 2024 halving.” In his telling, that leaves room for an upside part later within the cycle, whilst his nearer-term framework retains the concentrate on whether or not bitcoin gravitates towards realized worth and the 200-week common, holds the prior ATH zone, or validates a better low within the low-$70,000s.

At press time, BTC traded at $

Featured picture created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com