After six months, Bitcoin has surrendered the $100,000 mark. Even $90,000 is hard to call stable, and the odds of a slump into the $80,000 range look high. Some analysts say the bull market that has run since the halving of April 2024 is over.

This is not yet a major crash, but it is hardly unreasonable that new investors are discouraged by forecasts that we are entering the early stage of a secular bear market. Bitcoin has in fact repeated a pattern of peaking roughly 18 months after each halving and then declining.

Even so, we cannot conclude that this decline is necessarily the beginning of a secular bear market. It is true that the price peaked at a certain point after the halving, but the price action differs somewhat from past patterns. Measured against the $65,000 price at the time of the halving, the peak was only about twice that level. That falls short of the 2.5- to 3-fold gain that had been expected.

Compared with the 100-fold, 30-fold, and 7-fold advances of the first through third halvings, the gain has shrunk markedly. This follows from the growth of the Bitcoin ecosystem itself: the larger it becomes, the smaller the percentage advance. It is possible that this cycle has closed out with a mere 100% rise. In that case Bitcoin will trend lower for at least the next year.

Even so, excessive fear is unnecessary. Just as the upside has narrowed, the downside is likely to be limited as well. A crash of more than 50% in a short period is unlikely; a correction of around 30% at most is the realistic scenario.

In other words, the decline could halt in the $85,000 to $91,000 band. There is, of course, a chance of a momentary 40% drop that touches the $70,000 range. But in that case investors should treat it instead as an opportunity to buy aggressively.

What matters more than price patterns are the structural changes driving the market. Harvard's endowment tripled its Bitcoin holdings during this correction, investing roughly $400 million in Bitcoin ETFs.

Given that Harvard alumni are spread across global politics and business, the endowment's aggressive investment comes across as a hint to investors. Meanwhile, even as Bitcoin fell sharply, Goldman Sachs put out news that it is moving in earnest into the business of putting real-world assets (RWA) on the blockchain and is seeking tokenization platform partners.

These signs suggest that 2026 may not turn out to be the kind of deep winter seen in the past. The crash is limited in scope, and traditional finance is looking to expand its business on blockchain platforms. Institutional investors are likely to add to their holdings on every dip.

Bitcoin's four-year cycle still carries meaning. But the times are changing, and blind faith in past patterns is dangerous. Long-term investors should recognize that now is precisely the time to accumulate, and should watch the currents of global finance closely.