Analyst: The Era of Parabolic Bitcoin Surges May Be Over as the Market Matures

BlockBeats reports that on April 1, Coindesk analyst Omkar Godbole wrote that since early February this year, Bitcoin has been hovering around $70,000, far below the 2023–2025 bull market high of $126,000. The $70,000 level is the historical peak of the 2019–2022 market cycle, which means that the current bear market has retraced to the peak of the previous cycle. This phenomenon is quite rare. In the bear markets of 2014 and 2018, Bitcoin never fell back to the previous cycle's high; the only exception was in 2022, when the price dropped below the 2017 high of $20,000, but at the time, analysts attributed this to crypto scams and large-scale deleveraging. What makes the current retracement unusual is that it has occurred in an environment lacking extreme catalysts, happening merely as part of the natural fading of a bear market cycle.

Each new bull market no longer shows a parabolic surge, and it is increasingly difficult for prices to greatly surpass previous highs, with old peaks no longer being untouchable. This is a classic reflection of the law of diminishing returns: as the price of Bitcoin rises, the amount of capital needed to push the price higher also increases, making the era of large surges triggered by small fund inflows essentially a thing of the past, resulting in a price trajectory that is more stable and predictable. The advancement of Bitcoin's institutionalization and the expansion of the derivatives market have also smoothed out extreme volatility; traders now have structured tools to target volatility, timing, and market direction, instead of simply betting on price increases. This is in sharp contrast to the pre-2020 era, when trading was almost exclusively limited to the spot market, and active participants were typically fervent Bitcoin bulls who would rush in to buy at the slightest price pullback.

Old highs often form strong support due to an "anchoring bias"—investors who missed the initial breakout tend to buy when the price returns to a familiar range, fueling the next round of movement. This also explains why the recent downward trend has stalled near $70,000. If Bitcoin sees a strong rebound from the current level, it could signal that the bear market is nearing its end; but if the law of diminishing returns continues to apply, the next upward trend may be milder, unfolding in an orderly manner similar to traditional financial markets, rather than the wild surges of the speculative frenzy in the past.