PlanB, the pseudonymous analyst behind the stock-to-flow mannequin, says bitcoin’s drawdown has left markets watching 4 believable bear-market paths, starting from a basic 80% drawdown to the chance that the lows are already in.
In a publish on X and a follow-up video dated Feb. 4, PlanB framed the talk round the place bitcoin usually finds bear-market bottoms relative to long-term pattern metrics, whereas additionally arguing that the earlier rally’s lack of momentum might translate right into a shallower reset this time.
Bitcoin closed January at $78,000, he stated, marking a roughly 40% decline from the cycle’s all-time excessive at $126,000. On his chart, the 200-week transferring common closed at $58,000 and realized value at $55,000, with the January RSI ending at 49, a stage he treats as a regime shift.
“RSI right here, 49. RSI, as you already know, is an index between 0 and 100. And every thing above 50 is an uptrend. All the pieces under 50 is downtrend,” PlanB stated. “So 49 is under 50, it’s downtrend. It’s a bear market… just like 2014–15, 2018–19 and 2022–23.”
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4 Bitcoin Bear Market Situations
From there, he outlined 4 situations for a way the drawdown might evolve. The primary is the historic “worst case” that also sits in merchants’ psychological fashions: an 80% drop from the highest. With an ATH of $126,000, PlanB stated that might indicate a transfer to roughly $25,000 — “someplace right here between these two strains” on his chart, even when he acknowledged it could “look actually actually odd.”
The second situation is extra typical by his personal backtests: a backside across the 200-week transferring common and realized value, which he pegged within the $50,000–$60,000 stage. PlanB pointed to prior cycles the place value finally “drop[s] to the transferring common realized value ranges,” highlighting 2022 and 2015 as examples the place the RSI trough coincided with these long-term anchors.
The third situation is shallower nonetheless: a retrace that stops simply above the prior cycle’s all-time excessive, round $69,000–$70,000. PlanB’s reasoning is that the previous bull section seemed muted in his indicators, which might compress the magnitude of the bear.
“So what I believe is… as a result of the bull market was very weak… it didn’t have the purple dots, the excessive RSI peaks,” he stated. “Due to that, the bear market could possibly be very shallow. And that might imply, for instance, going again to the extent or simply be above the extent of the… earlier all-time excessive, which was 69,000.”
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The fourth situation is the one merchants at all times need on their screens: that the market already printed its low. PlanB wrote that “yesterday’s $72.9k was the underside,” and reiterated within the video that “perhaps the $72.800 that we noticed a pair days in the past was already the underside.” Notably, the BTC value already dropped to $70,140 on Wednesday, invalidating this situation.
IMO there are 4 bitcoin bear market situations:1) -80% from ATH $126k => $25k2) all the way down to 200w MA / realized value => $50k-60k3) down to only above earlier ATH => $70k4) yesterday’s $72.9k was the underside
I focus on these situation’s in my new video:👉 https://t.co/mXSxJK9LLx
— PlanB (@100trillionUSD) February 4, 2026
PlanB additionally revisited his stock-to-flow framework, saying it stays at $500,000 as a price sign derived from shortage whereas stressing it’s not constructed to name turning factors. “Inventory to move says nothing about tops and bottoms,” he stated, including that it speaks to “the four-year common” and periodic “section transition each 4 or 5 years.”
That caveat arrange his closing level: the cycle template could also be shifting. PlanB famous that in his four-year-cycle view, the height traditionally lands within the first or second 12 months after a halving, however “it didn’t occur after 2024 halving.” In his telling, that leaves room for an upside section later within the cycle, whilst his nearer-term framework retains the concentrate on whether or not bitcoin gravitates towards realized value and the 200-week common, holds the prior ATH zone, or validates the next low within the low-$70,000s.
At press time, BTC traded at $
Featured picture created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
