BTC has rallied back to the bear-market resistance band after four to five months compressed between that band and the 200-week MA, but the setup is still unresolved: a break above the band could extend the rebound, while a rejection or loss of the 200-week MA would keep the bear-market case alive. The case for caution leans on prior midterm-year patterns in 2014, 2015, 2018, 2019, 2022, and now 2026, where August/late-summer rallies often faded and lower lows still arrived. Even with BTC below 70K and still down almost 50% from highs, the notes argue a DCA approach has historically captured enough of the trend without needing to nail the bottom. The decisive window is the rest of 2026: if BTC avoids a lower low before year-end, the notes argue a bear call into 2027 stops making sense.
BTC has rallied back to the bear-market resistance band after four to five months compressed between that band and the 200-week MA.
The key fork is still unresolved: BTC either breaks above the bear-market resistance band or breaks below the 200-week MA.
BTC is below 70K and still down almost 50% from its highs.
July 1 in the midterm-year DCA window ended up being the low so far; the strategy is to start DCA on July 1 in the second half of the midterm year because bottoms are hard to time.
A summer 2018 DCA would have caught multiple rallies before the market later dropped, showing why buying nothing risks FOMO when rebounds happen.
BTC has not gone below the MVRVZ score or the realized price yet in 2026, even though those levels were broken in bear markets such as 2011, 2014, 2018, and 2022.
The current rally off the low is only about 20%, 21%, or 22%, which is similar to 2022’s 23% September rally and the later nearly 19% rebound that still rolled over.
2018 delivered a much larger setup: almost 50% from June to the August high, then about 26% to the bear-market resistance band before giving it all back.
BTC got a daily close above the 200-day MA, which matters because similar moves helped in 2023 and after the 2018 low into 2019, but failed in 2014 and 2019 when lower lows still came later.
If BTC is rejected again at the bear-market resistance band, it is still just bouncing between the same two levels until one finally forces direction; if it powers through, holds, and keeps moving higher, the move is more likely to stick.
The year’s rallies have repeatedly made the bear-market-over call look premature, and the notes say it is still too early to call the bear market over.
In 2014 BTC briefly dropped below the 200-week MA, rallied to the bear-market resistance band, got rejected, squeezed, then faked out above it before rolling back down.
In 2019 BTC followed a broad similar pattern by breaking through the bear-market resistance band and then coming back down to a higher low.
2015 ended with a lower low after the bear-market resistance-band setup, 2019 ended with a higher low, and 2022 saw the 200-week MA and the bear-market resistance band converge before BTC broke down below both.
In 2026 the MVRVZ score still has not gone below zero, the monthly Heikin Ashi candle is only slightly green, and BTC has not traded at these prices since early June.
Over the next few weeks, BTC will either hold the bear-market resistance band or get rejected from it; if it does not make a lower low before year-end, a bear call into 2027 no longer makes sense.