Bitcoin is trading around $63,000, down nearly 40% from its peak near $126,000

Wall Street desks are no longer talking about upside dreams. The talk right now is how far Bitcoin charts could fall if selling keeps piling up.

According to data from TradingView, Bitcoin’s price now sits at a shocking $63,500, after falling from $70,000 just this morning, losing $13,000 in 6 days, and staying far below the peak close to $126,000 seen months ago. A drop of about 40% has forced traders to stop listening to big promises and start reading charts line by line.

A lot of bullish talk collapsed at the same time. Momentum gauges sit deep in oversold zones but still fail to spark buying. The flood of exchange-traded fund demand has turned uneven. The asset also failed to act as protection during global stress.

Cycle history points to deep downside risks for Bitcoin

John Roque at 22V Research looks at long cycles, not hope. He says Bitcoin has gone through five major bear markets since 2011.

The average drawdown across those cycles hit about 80%. The smallest drop still wiped out 72% of the value. If the current cycle hits that smaller level, price would fall to around $35,200. For now, John keeps a nearer level in view at $60,000, but only while that line holds.

Michael Purves of Tallbacken Capital sees danger from longer signals. He flagged a monthly MACD crossover that triggered in November. He said the signal has an excellent track record for warning of large drops. The last four times it appeared, losses reached 60% to 65%. Michael also pointed to $76,000, which matches the average cost basis for Michael Saylor’s Strategy, the largest corporate holder of the asset. That price already failed.

This week, Michael repeated a target of $45,000, which implies another drop of about 33% from current levels. “Bitcoin selling has accelerated,” he said.

Key chart levels continue to fail

Matt Maley, chief market strategist at Miller Tabak + Co., is watching retracement levels closely. He said the zone just below $70,000 matters because it lines up with the 50% retracement of the rally that started after the 2022 lows. Below that, his next focus is $65,000, tied to the 50% retracement from the pandemic low set in 2020.

Alex Thorn, head of firmwide research at Galaxy Digital, tracks long moving averages. In the last three bull markets, Bitcoin found support at the 50-week moving average. Once that line failed, price slid back to the 200-week moving average. Right now, the token trades below the 50-week line, and the 200-week average sits near $58,000.

Alex also wrote that outside of 2017, a 40% drop from a record high never stopped there. In each case, losses stretched to 50% or more within three months.

Valuation pressure and betting markets show fear

Old valuation arguments are also losing grip. JPMorgan strategists say Bitcoin now trades well below its estimated production cost of about $87,000. If price stays under that level for a long stretch, unprofitable miners could exit, which would impact production economics even more.

That backdrop is not pulling buyers back. Trading behavior looks more like a tech risk dump than a bargain hunt.

On Polymarket, odds for a finish below $55,000 climbed to roughly 60%. Odds for a rebound to $100,000 fell to 54%, down from 80% at the start of the year. Short-dated bets lean even darker. One February market now prices a 72% chance that Bitcoin trades below $70,000 by March 1. That jump rose more than 35 percentage points this month, backed by about $1.7 million in bets.

ETF flows no longer help. Tens of billions flowed into funds last year and lifted prices. That support faded. U.S.-listed crypto ETFs saw nearly $4 billion in outflows over the past three months, based on Bloomberg data. Research from Glassnode and K33 shows the average trader now sits underwater.

This clashes with bullish calls still floating around Wall Street. Tom Lee predicted in November that Bitcoin could reach $150,000 to $200,000, which did not happen. Even after cutting targets, firms like Standard Chartered and Bernstein still see $150,000 by year end. The charts and the bets say the fight is far from over.

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