Crypto markets are currently around 13% lower than they were at the beginning of this year, and Bitcoin is down approximately 8%.\u00a0Total market capitalization is now at its lowest level since April after falling below $3 trillion this week, but it\u2019s not all that bad, say analysts and experts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI get that this year is a drag, but consider Bitcoin was up 468% in the two years prior to this year,\u201d observed<\/a> Bloomberg\u2019s senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas on Thursday.\u00a0He added that this was an annual return of 138%, which is eight times more than US stocks.<\/p>\n \u201cThat is sooo much excess return beyond normalcy,\u201d he said before adding, \u201call that happened this year is you gave back a tiny bit of the excess.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s like your ice cream sundae now has 55 cherries instead of 60. You\u2019re Fine!\u201d<\/p>\n Futures trader \u2018Toni\u2019 replied, stating that the long-term gain and current pullback mean that \u201creversion is doing its job, not a bear market.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe ETF inflows created the spike, now we\u2019re just settling back to the long-term BTC growth curve. This is healthy consolidation.\u201d<\/p>\n The comments came in response to analyst \u2018Ash Crypto,\u2019 who said<\/a> that markets made this year feel worse than the COVID crash, FTX meltdown, LUNA crash, SEC and Gary Gensler\u2019s lawsuit spree, Celsius and BlockFi bankruptcies, and the 3AC collapse.<\/p>\n He listed several bullish fundamentals that have emerged this year, including pro-crypto policy in the US, all-time highs for stocks and commodities, institutional adoption, and expansion of the global money supply.<\/p>\n \u201cMarket rallies don\u2019t start when hope is high, it\u2019s when people are tired, frustrated, and ready to give up.\u201d<\/p>\n 2025 has been brutal, \u201cit was front-loaded pain in every single way possible, from tariffs to geopolitical tensions to policy mayhem and everything in between,\u201d said<\/a> crypto investor Jesse Eckel.<\/p>\n However, he also debunked the four-year cycle theory, stating that 2026 is structurally the opposite.<\/p>\n \u201cThey want an economic boom and are pouring as much gasoline on the fire as they can. It\u2019s not even 2026, and we\u2019ve already received three rate cuts, QT is over, balance sheet expansion is underway, and tariff reductions,\u201d he added before adding that it will be a five-year cycle.<\/p>\n Looking at the Bitcoin chart from a yearly perspective shows that it is still in a strong uptrend<\/a>. BTC is still double the price it was trading at on this day two years ago and more than 400% higher than it was in December 2022.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, the asset continues to weaken in the short term and was trading around $87,000 at the time of writing, 31% down from its all-time high, but up 2.3% after the Bank of Japan raised rates on Friday morning.<\/p>\n Institutions buying #Bitcoin<\/a> Bitcoin down $46,000\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/trFRiNejst<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Jason Pizzino (@jasonpizzino) December 18, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n\n The post This Year Has Been a Drag But BTC is Still Up Over 400% Since Cycle Low<\/a> appeared first on CryptoPotato<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Crypto markets are currently around 13% lower than they were at the beginning of this year, and Bitcoin is down approximately 8%.\u00a0Total market capitalization is now at its lowest level since April after falling below $3 trillion this week, but it\u2019s not all that bad, say analysts and experts. \u201cI get that this year is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":121685,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-121684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-discovery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121684"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=121684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/121685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=121684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=121684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=121684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Feels Worse Than Covid Crash<\/h2>\n
Don\u2019t Panic And Zoom Out<\/h2>\n
\nStrategy buying #BTC<\/a>
\nLiquidity coming
\nInterest rate cut
\nQE, FED prints $40B
\nM2 Money Supply, stable
\nGlobal liquidity +10 weeks, up
\nGlobal liquidity +\/- arbitrary figure, up
\nBitcoin Top Signal Indicators, up<\/p>\n