Galaxy Research told clients on Monday that the Bitcoin bear market ended in June and that now is an attractive time to buy and hold. “We believe the bottom is in, selling pressure has diminished, the debasement case has strengthened, and the crowd has left,” wrote Alex Thorn, head of firmwide research, in a report shared with The Block.
Bitcoin was quoted above $80,000 when that report landed at 9:00AM EDT. It has since slipped to $79,513, down 0.90% on the day, which puts the price within $2,973 of the level Galaxy itself named as the point where its call stops working.
Bitcoin sits 36% below its October 2025 record of roughly $126,000 and above its June low; the arc Galaxy reads as a completed Bitcoin bear market. Source: TradingViewGalaxy’s Own Invalidation Level Sits 3.7% Below Spot
Thorn named the condition that would break the thesis, and it is a close one. A weekly close below the 50-week moving average of $76,540, with no recovery inside a month, would challenge the view that the bitcoin bear market is behind us.
At $79,513 that trigger is 3.7% away. TradingView puts the 200-day exponential moving average at $76,300 and the 100-day at $77,677, so three widely watched levels cluster in a band Bitcoin is currently sitting just above. A call to buy and hold through a Bitcoin bear market that ended four months ago carries an unusually short leash.
The Signal Fired Five Weeks Ago, and Price Is 7% Lower
Bitcoin has now closed above its 50-week moving average for five straight weeks through 18 October, after 44 consecutive weeks below it. Galaxy treats that run as confirmation.
Price fell during those five weeks of confirmation, which is the awkward part. The first weekly close above the 50-week average came in September with bitcoin near $85,500, so the coin is about 7% lower today than when the signal that supposedly ended the bitcoin bear market first triggered. The moving average has held because the average itself is falling, which is what a lagging indicator does after a long decline.
Investor Takeaway
Galaxy’s Bitcoin bear market call carries a stated invalidation at $76,540, only 3.7% below Monday’s price, so the thesis is testable within weeks rather than quarters.
Old Wallets Moved 34,000 BTC a Month, Down From 67,000
The supply argument carries more weight than the sentiment one, and it is the part of the Bitcoin bear market case most likely to hold. Coins in wallets untouched for at least five years moved at an average of 34,000 BTC a month in 2026, against 47,000 in 2025 and 67,000 in 2024, according to Galaxy. About 1.11 million BTC in that age bracket has moved since October 2024.
Galaxy credits exchange-traded funds and public treasury companies with absorbing much of it. Thorn also argued that mounting federal debt, which he put at $40.44 trillion, alongside AI-related borrowing, strengthens the case for bitcoin as a hedge against currency debasement.
Strategy Paused Its Bitcoin Buying the Same Morning
Strategy said on Monday that it had paused Bitcoin purchases and repurchased $205 million of STRC preferred shares. One of the two absorbers Galaxy names stepped back inside the same news cycle, and that holding represents real market depth if it ever reverses. Strive moved the other way with a $511 million purchase.
Fund flows through the same stretch are choppier than the bitcoin bear market thesis implies. SoSoValue data shows US spot Bitcoin funds lost $635.49 million on 22 October and a further $137.94 million on 23 October, after taking in $528.40 million on 21 October. Cumulative net inflows stand at $57.18 billion and total net assets at $104.43 billion, or 6.38% of Bitcoin’s market value. Two heavy outflow days do not undo a two-year absorption trend, and they do sit awkwardly beside a report published three days later arguing the bid is durable.
Fear and Greed Reads 51, Which Is Not Capitulation
The weakest limb of the argument is the claim that the crowd has left. CoinGlass puts the Crypto Fear and Greed Index at 51, squarely in neutral territory, on a scale where readings below 25 mark extreme fear.
Bitcoin bear market bottoms are usually called from the other end of that range. The index has spent 413 days in extreme fear and 999 in fear across its history, so a neutral print is not the sentiment washout the report describes. Bitcoin is down 9.12% for the year and 28.79% over twelve months on a market value of $1.61 trillion, and TradingView’s own oscillator, moving-average and summary readings are all neutral.
On the two tail risks, Galaxy engaged directly rather than waving them away. Recent AI-assisted thefts hit exchanges, vendors, devices and users rather than the protocol, it noted, and AI does not weaken SHA-256 or Bitcoin’s signature scheme. On quantum computing, it said no machine capable of breaking bitcoin’s cryptography exists, pointing to work on quantum-resistant upgrades.
The Bitcoin Bear Market Call Against the Rest of the Street
Plenty of the street shares Galaxy’s direction on bitcoin while disputing its timing on the bear market. Bernstein has held a $150,000 target through the drawdown, arguing the slide from the October 2025 peak is milder than past cycles. One miner has put the Bitcoin bear market bottom at $42,000 to $44,000 in late 2026, which would require roughly another 45% down from here.
Citigroup has separately identified about $4 billion of spot ETF withdrawals as the mechanism behind an earlier leg lower, which is the same flow channel Galaxy now counts as support.
Investor Takeaway
The supply data is the durable part of Galaxy’s Bitcoin bear market case, because a fall from 67,000 to 34,000 BTC a month in old-wallet movement is structural rather than sentiment-driven.
