How Bitcoin bulls make money during downturns — and why BTC could hit $85k soon

When Bitcoin falls, most people see a shrinking number on a screen. The committed bull sees an opportunity to stack more sats for the next run quietly.

Bear markets feel brutal in real time. Timelines fill with capitulation, “Bitcoin is dead” posts resurface, and the same people who were breathless at the top sound bored again.

Yet historically, this is where disciplined bulls have done their best work, increasing their Bitcoin holdings while everyone else fights fatigue.

You do not need a quant’s toolkit to do it. With a simple framework and a few basic strategies, a long-term Bitcoin believer can use downturns to emerge with more BTC than they had at the peak, ready for whatever comes next.

Step one, decide what you are actually trying to grow

Before touching any strategy, a Bitcoin bull has to answer a simple question. Is the goal to grow the dollar value of their portfolio, or the number of BTC in their stack?

In a falling market, those goals pull in different directions.

A trader who thinks in dollars is tempted to sell early, buy back lower, and report a profit in fiat terms, even if they end up with less Bitcoin than they started with.

A bull who thinks in BTC is playing a different game. They want more coins by the time the next cycle tops out, even if the mark-to-market value looks ugly along the way.

Every tactic below makes more sense when viewed through that lens. The metric that matters is the size of the stack, not the daily P&L screenshot.

Dollar cost averaging on the way down, with rules, not vibes

Dollar cost averaging, DCA, is the most boring tool in the kit, and also the most underrated in a falling market.

The concept is simple. You decide in advance to buy a fixed amount of Bitcoin at regular intervals, for example every week or every month, regardless of price. Instead of trying to guess the bottom, you let time do the work, smoothing out your entry as the market grinds lower.

Where it becomes powerful for a committed bull is when it is combined with a written plan. That plan might look like:

• A fixed percentage of income or cash flow allocated to Bitcoin each month
• Pre defined buy dates, for example the first and the fifteenth
• An extra “dip fund” that only triggers if price falls below specific levels that you set in advance

The rules matter. In a deep drawdown, emotions scream to “wait a little longer, it will be cheaper tomorrow.” That tendency is exactly how people miss the most attractive prices of the cycle. A standing order is boring, but it executes when your future self will be glad you acted.

For BTC stack growth, DCA works as the foundation. The rest of the strategies sit on top of it.

Small, simple hedges, making volatility work for you

Shorting is a dirty word for many Bitcoin bulls, yet a small and carefully sized hedge can protect your stack and even help you accumulate more BTC when the market steps down.

You do not need 10x leverage and a day trader’s screen to do this. One approach is to treat hedging like an insurance policy. Bulls often allocate a tiny slice of BTC holdings or capital to a short position during periods when the market looks stretched and overheated, for example, after a parabolic move and euphoric sentiment.

The logic is straightforward. If the price falls sharply, that short generates profit. Instead of withdrawing those gains as cash, a Bitcoin bull can rotate them into more BTC at the new, lower levels. If the market shrugs off the pullback and continues higher, the small hedge expires at a loss, and the central long-term holdings benefit from the trend.

The crucial word is “small”. Overhedging is how long-term bulls accidentally convert themselves into net bears. The intention here is not to bet against Bitcoin; it is to keep some dry powder that reacts well to sharp down moves, then recycle that into your long holdings.

Grid trading, turning choppy markets into extra sats

In choppy markets, conviction often dies. Price ping pongs in a range, social feeds grow quiet, and nobody is quite sure whether the next move will be a breakdown or a breakout.

For a Bitcoin bull who is comfortable leaving a portion of their stack to work on a clear set of rules, grid trading can turn that dull volatility into extra coins.

The idea is to place a series of staggered buy and sell orders at preset price levels within a range. For example, imagine BTC trading between 45k and 30k. A bull might:

• Place buy orders every 2k lower on the way down, paid with stablecoins
• Place sell orders every 2k higher on the way up, taking profit back into stablecoins or into BTC held at a different wallet

When price oscillates inside that band, the grid automatically buys low and sells high, generating small, repeated gains. Those gains can then be consolidated into additional long-term Bitcoin holdings.

Modern exchanges and some bots offer simple grid tools so users do not have to manually place each order, although that convenience comes with counterparty risk. As always, a bull who cares about stack survival keeps the majority of holdings in cold storage and only allocates a defined, smaller portion to active strategies.

Using options as a shield, not a lottery ticket

Options are usually marketed as lottery tickets on crypto Twitter, but they can also serve a quieter role for a Bitcoin bull who wants protection without panic-selling.

One example is buying put options during periods of elevated uncertainty. A put option gives you the right, not the obligation, to sell BTC at a specific price within a certain timeframe. The premium you pay is similar to an insurance fee. If the market crashes, those puts increase in value, generating profit that can be recycled into fresh Bitcoin at lower prices.

There are more advanced variations, such as selling covered calls on a portion of your stack. In that case, you collect option premiums in exchange for agreeing to sell some BTC if the price reaches a specific level in the future. Used carefully, those premiums can grow holdings in quiet periods, although bulls accept the risk of having to part with that portion of their stack if the market explodes higher.

Again, sizing and intent matter more than complexity. A long-term bull is not trying to build a derivatives hedge fund. The role of options in this framework is to provide modest protection and occasional yield that flows back into core holdings.

Yield and lending, with a very bright line around risk

Every bear market in crypto has come with its own yield story and its own set of blow-ups. From offshore lending desks to overleveraged trading firms, the lesson has been consistent. Counterparty risk can wipe out years of careful stacking in a single black swan.

That does not mean every source of yield is off limits forever. It does mean a Bitcoin bull who wants to survive several cycles treats yield like a bonus, not a baseline.

A conservative framework might look like this:

• Keep the majority of BTC in self-custody, untouchable and offline
• Allocate a small, clearly defined portion to lower-risk yield strategies, for example, on regulated venues with transparent reserves.
• Treat all yield as temporary and reversible, with a plan to pull funds when market conditions deteriorate.

The yield generated can be used to buy more spot Bitcoin on a schedule, or to fund the other hedging strategies described above. The aim is always the same. Grow the stack while surviving the occasional failure in the broader crypto credit system.

A written methodology for the next cycle

None of these strategies requires expert-level trading skills. What they do require is intentionality. The Bitcoin bull who comes out of a bear market with a larger stack usually has three things in place:

1. A clear primary goal, more BTC, not just more dollars on a screen
2. A base layer of automatic accumulation through DCA
3. A small set of simple, well-defined tactics to exploit volatility and protect the downside

Bear markets eventually exhaust themselves. Sentiment bottoms out, forced sellers disappear, and the same asset everyone wrote off at the lows begins to climb again.

When that next phase arrives, the question for a believer in Bitcoin is simple. Did the downtrend shrink your stack, or did you quietly accumulate more, ready for the moment the market remembers why it cared in the first place?

Are we in a Bitcoin bear market?

Bitcoin’s price action right now resembles a slow descent down a liquidity staircase.

Each shelf, $112k, $100k, then $90k, and then the high $80ks, has behaved like a rung on a ladder, catching price briefly before giving way.

The market now sits inside a broad purple band in the low $90,000s, a zone where trapped longs are exiting and fresh shorts are leaning.

If selling pressure resumes, the next meaningful cluster of historical bids, market-maker inventory, and ETF-era liquidity sits near $85,000. It’s not a prophecy; it’s simply the next step on the grid Bitcoin has respected for more than a year.

For bulls, this directional map matters because it reframes fear into structure. If the path toward deeper shelves remains clean, the market may offer a series of increasingly attractive long-term accumulation points.

Whether price bounces early or tags the lower bands, these areas tend to be where volatility compresses, emotions peak, and disciplined BTC-denominated thinkers quietly expand their stack.

In other words, directionality is not about timing the bottom; it’s about knowing where opportunity tends to concentrate when everyone else is exhausted.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Crypto markets are volatile; always conduct your own research and consult with a professional before making financial decisions.

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