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Bitcoin on its way to worst Q4 since 2018 as analysts see key signal for “bitcoin bear market”

The Crypto Fear & Greed Index is seeing “the longest Extreme Fear streak since the FTX collapse.”

11/20/25 11:07AM

Bitcoin fell to a seven-month low of $88,522 on Wednesday but saw a surge above $92,000 that night following the blowout Nvidia earnings report. It seems dour jobs data raising the odds of a December Fed rate cut has sent bitcoin back down below the $90,000 level as of 11:05 a.m. ET Thursday morning. The asset is now down 3.9% on the year, and is on its way to its worst fourth quarter since 2018, according to CoinGlass.

“Today’s bounce is welcome but not decisive. The Fed introduced conditionality, Nvidia added optimism, and bitcoin ETFs briefly turned green, yet the structural battle remains unresolved,” Timothy Misir, Blockhead Research Network’s head of research, said.

To say that the sentiment is gloomy is to put it mildly. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index is at 11, “the longest Extreme Fear streak since the FTX collapse,” Coin Bureau posted on X.

“There isn’t any near-term catalyst for BTC to pump back the remainder of this year,” Brian Huang, cofounder and CEO of Glider, told Sherwood News.

CryptoQuant analysts said bitcoin market conditions are the most bearish they’ve been since the current bull cycle, which began in January 2023, notably as the price broke down its 365-day moving average.

“A decline below this key technical level was the last bearish signal that confirmed the 2022 bitcoin bear market,” they said in a report.

Meanwhile, bitcoin ETFs resumed inflows, recording a meager $75.4 million on Wednesday — barely making a dent to bring down total outflows, which stand at $2.89 billion for November, SoSoValue data shows. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust saw the lion’s share, a welcome change following Tuesday’s record $523.2 million in outflows.

“Bitcoin has been all over the place in the last 24 hours, pulled in different directions by conflicting news. On the one hand, we have the rapidly dwindling chances of a December rate cut by the FOMC — on the other, a sign of relief that the AI bubble isn’t about to implode, after Nvidia’s forecast-beating earnings,” Nic Puckrin, cofounder of Coin Bureau, told Sherwood.

Puckrin said the next resistance level to watch is around $107,500, which marks the 50% level from yesterday’s low and bitcoin’s all-time high.

“Conversely, if macroeconomic jitters turn into full-blown panic and the sell-off intensifies, there is strong resistance around $75,000, which marks the April 2025 low,” he said.

Armando Aguilar, capital formation lead at TeraHash, echoed the sentiment, saying that a deeper move toward the $75,000 to $78,000 range could be possible if outflows accelerate and macro conditions turn risk-off.

“If redemptions slow down, bitcoin is likely to stabilize in the current $89,000–$95,000 range until the market finishes recalibration. Overall, I find recalibration, not a deeper drawdown, to be the base case for the near future,” Aguilar said.

UPDATE: Corrected mention of fed rate cut odds, which rose after jobs data was released.

Sage D. Young21h

Payward, parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, puts plans for IPO on hold

Payward, crypto exchange Kraken’s parent company, has paused its plans for an initial public offering until market conditions improve, according to a report from CoinDesk that cited two people with knowledge of the matter.

Since the firm announced in November its preparation for an IPO of its common stock, the total market capitalization of the crypto industry has shed around $652.2 billion, from $3.2 trillion to $2.5 trillion as of Wednesday, data from CoinGecko shows.

The news comes two weeks after Kraken received approval for a master account from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, allowing the crypto exchange to connect to the Fed’s payment infrastructure used by traditional banks and credit unions.

Last year, Kraken raised $800 million at a $20 billion valuation from institutional investors such as Jane Street and Citadel Securities.

Payward, parent of crypto exchange Kraken, has put its IPO plans on hold

Last year, Kraken raised $800 million at a $20 billion valuation from institutional investors such as Jane Street and Citadel Securities.

Sage D. Young22h

SEC and CFTC issue new guidance on how securities laws apply to crypto assets

On Tuesday, the US Securities and Exchange Commission, together with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, issued an interpretation clarifying how federal securities law applies to crypto assets, a first step toward developing a clearer regulatory framework.

The interpretive guidance introduces a token taxonomy for different types of cryptocurrencies, with SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins adding that “most crypto assets are not themselves securities.”

Examples of a digital commodity, “a crypto asset that is intrinsically linked to and derives its value from the programmatic operation of a crypto system that is ‘functional,’” include:

Aptos, avalanche, bitcoin, bitcoin cash, cardano, chainlink, dogecoin, ethereum, hedera, litecoin, polkadot, shiba inu, solana, stellar, tezos, and XRP.

The guidance also includes definitions of digital collectibles (such as NFTs), stablecoins, digital tools, and digital securities (such as tokenized real-world assets and stocks).

This is a monumental step in the mainstream adoption of the industry and clears a hurdle in how crypto can operate going forward, according to David Pakman, head of venture investments at CoinFund. “This will allow new token designs with the confidence that their existence does not require registration with the SEC, etc.,” Pakman told Sherwood News.

Despite the clarification efforts from the two organizations, the market capitalization of the crypto industry has dropped about 2% in the last 24 hours as each of the tokens mentioned in the guidance are trading lower in the period, data from CoinGecko shows.

The joint agency action also complements congressional efforts to turn a crypto market structure framework into law. With the goal of providing regulations on the offer and sale of digital commodities, the CLARITY Act passed the House of Representatives last year and is now sitting in the Senate.

Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy

23h

Citi analysts cut 12-month bitcoin projection to $112,000 from $143,000

The analysts’ bear-case scenario is $57,537, based on “recessionary macro-factors, especially weak equity markets,” which could cause ETF flows to stall.

Sage D. Young3/17/26

Bitcoin sees 8 consecutive days of gains, a streak not seen in 4 years

Bitcoin is on a winning streak. The cryptocurrency has generated eight straight days of positive returns, a rare phenomenon that has occurred only 15 times since Satoshi Nakamoto created it, according to a CoinDesk report.

In the 30 days after posting an eight-day streak, bitcoin traded higher nine times and lower six times. The median return in the period is roughly 19%. Despite the historical gains that followed, the last time bitcoin had such a rally, four years ago, it dropped roughly 30%.

Most recently, bitcoin climbed from below $66,000 on March 8 to over $75,000 yesterday before settling around $73,800 on Tuesday morning.

Traders remain modestly bullish on the likelihood of further gains, though the sentiment is fading: prediction market-implied odds of bitcoin trading above $77,500 in the month stand at 54%, a decrease from 73% on Monday.

(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)

Bitcoin hits rare 8-day winning streak – but 2022 bear market saw one too

Most recently, bitcoin climbed from below $66,000 on March 8 to over $75,000 yesterday before settling around $73,800 on Tuesday morning.

(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)

Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy3/17/26

Another miner sells its bitcoin

Despite bitcoin being on the rebound, another bitcoin miner sold a chunk of its holdings to further its pivot to AI. In February, Cango, a former automotive service, said it sold 4,451 bitcoin in favor of AI, just a year after becoming a miner. The company said it used the proceeds of the sale to pay down long-term debt and “reduce the overall finance leverage and strengthen the balance sheet,” according to its fourth-quarter and full-year earnings release.

Shares were up 4.5% in premarket trading.

Cango recorded a net loss from continuing operations of $452.8 million in 2025, “primarily due to non-recurring transformation costs and market-driven fair-value adjustments,” it said.

Its “adjusted bitcoin treasury policy” will “provide the financial flexibility needed to navigate volatility and invest in high-potential areas like AI infrastructure,” Cango said.

Bitcoin’s earlier downward trajectory has pressured several miners, which are choosing to pivot to AI and sell their assets or exit the business entirely.

Cango’s move follows Core Scientific, which sold over 1,900 bitcoin for $175 million in January as it shifts even more of its focus to the AI data center boom.

As bitcoin mining economics “have gone from bad to worse,” companies pivot and sell to survive