TLDR:
- Bitcoin’s cycle bottoms have grown shallower each time, falling from -92.7% in 2011 to -68.5% in 2022.
- BTC is currently 47% below its October 2025 ATH of $126K, with Fear and Greed at single digits.
- Green drawdown days near all-time highs are growing faster than red days for the first time in Bitcoin’s history.
- Comparing the 2025 selloff to 2018 may be the wrong framework, as structural data points to a maturing asset.
The latest Bitcoin selloff has renewed fears of a prolonged bear market, but historical drawdown data suggests this cycle may not follow the same path as those before it.
Bitcoin currently trades roughly 47% below its October 2025 all-time high of $126,000. Fear and Greed readings sit at single digits.
Yet 15 years of drawdown data, when mapped against the present, paints a different picture from what many traders are expecting.
Past Cycles Carried Far Deeper and Longer Drawdowns
In 2011, Bitcoin collapsed 92.7% from its peak. Nearly every day of its young existence was spent deep in drawdown territory.
The 2013–2015 cycle followed with a 72% decline, adding over 1,500 days of brutal losses to the historical record.
By 2017, Bitcoin had logged more than 2,500 drawdown days, and red still dominated the distribution chart. The 2018 bear market then pushed losses to 78.4%, reinforcing the same deep correction band between -60% and -80%. Those cycles defined what analyst Sminston With described as “the old Bitcoin.”
The critical pattern across all those cycles, however, is one of gradual improvement. Each successive bottom came in shallower than the one before it.
The sequence runs as follows: -92.7%, -87%, -84%, -77%, and then -68.5% in 2022. That consistent upward shift in the floor is not coincidental.
The current selloff, sitting at approximately -47%, has not yet approached any of those prior cycle bottoms. That alone separates this moment from what traders experienced in 2018 or 2015, even if sentiment feels comparable.
Structural Shifts in How Bitcoin Spends Its Time
After the 2021 bull cycle, a measurable change appeared in the drawdown distribution. Green bars, representing days spent within 0% to -15% of an all-time high, began growing at a faster rate than any prior period. Bitcoin was simply spending more time near its highs than it ever had before.
Sminston With noted that “green-white oscillations are replacing the deep red plunges,” referring to the shift away from the severe, prolonged corrections that once dominated Bitcoin’s history.
The transition zone between -15% and -35% has also grown, with Bitcoin spending close to 90 days there following the October 2025 peak.
This does not mean further downside is impossible. Some market participants are still calling for $40,000 or even $25,000.
However, the data shows that Bitcoin’s worst drawdowns have been getting structurally shallower, cycle after cycle, and the time spent near all-time highs has been growing.
The question the data raises is straightforward. If each cycle bottom has come in less severe than the last, and if Bitcoin is spending more time in the green regime than ever before, then comparing 2025 to 2018 may simply be the wrong framework for this moment.
The post Why Bitcoin’s 47% Drop From $126K Is Not the Crisis It Appears to Be appeared first on Blockonomi.
Source: https://blockonomi.com/why-bitcoins-47-drop-from-126k-is-not-the-crisis-it-appears-to-be/
