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

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.