Markets
What to know:
- Bitcoin’s recent failure to tease the $83,000 mark, a la its most grandiose 200‑day moving average, has sparked a miniature panic in the same style as a nervy dinner guest who misses the last slice of cake. Yet K33 Research points out that this time, the market has inherited a more genteel aura than previous bear episodes.
- Derivatives, those ever-faithful almanacs of market mood, now betray an oddly steady bleakness that resembles the calm before a drizzly Sunday rather than the frantic bounce‑back of a million Japanese geishas.
- The firm still believes bitcoin’s February plunge to the dignified $60,000 remains the deepest dip this cycle has had the nerve to take.
Bitcoin’s stubborn inability to glide past the $83,000 band has revived the old panic that another brutal descent might be on the horizon.
Yet K33 Research, in its Tuesday epistle, insists this cycle behaves differently from the 2014, 2018, or 2022 wrecks that followed similar rejections.
Back in those times, Bitcoin would do a haughty lift back toward the 200‑day line before, with all the drama of a Dickensian fog, collapsing again. Those rebounds were, in spoiler alert, fueled by a burgeoning leverage that, like a tower of glass, shook under a careless glance.
“The present lull refuses to produce quixotic spikes,” mused Vetle Lunde, the head of research at K33. “Derivatives data now whispers a most persistently pessimistic gossip.”
Extreme caution
Bitcoin’s 30‑day average funding rate has freeloaded negative for 81 straight days now, flirting with its record extremity. Traders appear to have signed a contract with despair even as prices flirt with the February lows near $60,000.
Meanwhile, the annualised basis on CME bitcoin futures has slipped below 2.5%, the sort of figure that normally intimates a world where caution is not just a suggestion but a mandatory dress code.
Nevertheless, Lunde still felt compelled to warn.
Open interest across bitcoin derivatives remains lofty like a balloon in the sky, raising the risk of another volatility circus if prices weakens further. At the same time, U.S. bitcoin ETF outflows have accelerated to a staggering $1.6 bn in five days as prices languish near the $83,000 threshold-a pressure point almost as sharp as the average cost basis of many ETF holders.
K33 notes that historically, investors have tended to sell off more vehemently when prices move back toward breakeven after a long, sluggish slide. This pattern appears, to the firm’s credit, to resurface.
Bottom likely in
Yet K33’s proprietary indicators still climb to better states, reminiscent of the March‑April 2025 period when BTC hit a low amid Trump’s tariff tantrum before rallying to fresh highs, more reminiscent of a resilient old gentleman than the weary bears of previous cycles.
The company maintains that bitcoin’s February slide to $60,000 remains the apex of this cycle’s severity.
“The less aggressive bull market of 2025 sets the stage for a more moderate bear market in 2026,” Lunde wrote, holding steadfast to the firm’s “base case” that $60,000, hit in February, defines this bear market’s maximum downward plunge.
Read More
- APT PREDICTION. APT cryptocurrency
- Nvidia Stock Price: Bull Flag Pattern Signals May 2026 Rally?
- BNB PREDICTION. BNB cryptocurrency
- WLFI PREDICTION. WLFI cryptocurrency
- ICP PREDICTION. ICP cryptocurrency
- DASH PREDICTION. DASH cryptocurrency
- USD RUB PREDICTION
- EUR INR PREDICTION
- HYPE PREDICTION. HYPE cryptocurrency
- SOL PREDICTION. SOL cryptocurrency
2026-05-19 23:26