Bitcoin Crashes, Fear Spikes—But Analyst Sees $153,000 Ahead

In his latest video update, long-time market analyst and self-described “four-year cycle” trader Bob Loukas delivered a breakdown of Bitcoin’s current trajectory. Despite a roughly 22% pullback from its recent all-time high, Loukas asserts that the leading cryptocurrency’s price action remains “nothing we have not seen before.”

Loukas opened his video by acknowledging growing anxiety among traders following Bitcoin’s drop from around $110,000 to the mid-$80,000 range. However, he emphasized that such swings are a natural part of Bitcoin’s characteristic volatility. “As I record this video Bitcoin’s at $87,000, down from an all-time high of around $110,000… which historically, even for this four-year cycle, is basically right on the averages […] a 20% drawdown from a high,” he stated.

Bitcoin’s Four-Year Cycles

While Loukas emphasized that intracycle corrections of this magnitude “should not come necessarily as a major surprise,” he also acknowledged that deeper drops remain possible in the short term. In his assessment, a temporary cascade toward $80,000 or even the mid-$70,000s—which would reflect around a 30% drawdown—cannot be ruled out:

“There’s no reason why this current move couldn’t drop all the way down to the low $80,000s. There’s a more outside chance that it could also fall into the $70,000s—maybe $75,000 or $73,000. That’s still within Bitcoin’s historical volatility range.”

According to Loukas, these corrective moves represent a routine “fear reset.” He contends that late buyers in the previous upswing often capitulate during such pullbacks. However, in the context of Bitcoin’s broader uptrend, he argues these phases have historically paved the way for fresh rallies.

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Loukas primarily frames his analysis around a four-year cycle, which he subdivides into shorter “weekly cycles” of roughly six months each. Each weekly cycle, he says, typically ascends for two-thirds of its duration and then declines for the remainder, resetting sentiment. Although the current pullback unsettles many traders, Loukas sees it as consistent with Bitcoin’s longstanding cyclical pattern:

“Unless you believe that the four-year cycle has peaked—which I do not—I see this as one of the normal, oscillating weekly cycle declines. It’s the same E and flow we’ve witnessed so many times.”

Loukas revealed that his first sale target for the model portfolio is around $153,000 per Bitcoin, contingent on where this current decline bottoms. From the mid-$80,000s, his baseline scenario projects a potential 80% upward move during the next multi-week upswing. He emphasized that this number may be revised depending on how low Bitcoin drops during the present correction.

Crucially, Loukas noted that he remains open to the possibility that the top could be in if the next rebound falters in a pattern known as a “failed weekly cycle.” He explained that once Bitcoin establishes a new short-term low—potentially near $80,000 or into the $70,000s—the market’s next test will be its recovery. If that bounce fails to surpass the prior high near $110,000 and subsequently undercuts the newly established low, it would signal deeper downside:

“If we see a sharp countertrend move that rolls over quickly, takes out the new weekly cycle low, that’s extremely concerning. It would indicate a change in trend and possibly that the four-year cycle has already peaked.”

The Decoupling Of Bitcoin And Altcoins

Although Loukas briefly mentioned the altcoin market, he highlighted how this cycle appears to be diverging from past altcoin frenzies. Loukas described a “significant decoupling” of Bitcoin from other digital assets, noting the lack of sustained retail or institutional interest in most alternative tokens: “There isn’t a retail case, there isn’t a retail flow… so many (altcoin) narratives have come and gone… It looks as if the Trump coin was the top of that, which is probably not surprising in hindsight.”

He maintains that Bitcoin, meanwhile, is increasingly being viewed as a distinct, more mature asset class, capturing interest from pension funds, sovereign wealth managers, and institutions well outside the traditional “crypto” sphere.

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According to Loukas, Bitcoin’s monthly chart shows no conclusive signs of a cycle top. He remains convinced the market has not fully played out the final leg of its historical four-year bull trend, which, in previous cycles, culminated roughly 35 months after the last bear market low.

For context, he pointed out that the current cycle’s low took shape in late 2022, placing the next potential peak around the fall or early winter of 2025, if it follows established precedent: “We’re in year three of the cycle. Time-wise, if this follows prior four-year structures, we have another leg higher, possibly an aggressive one, heading into late 2025. But no cycle is guaranteed to rhyme perfectly. We stay alert and look for the warning signals of a final top—until then, I see no reason to change the bullish view.”

Despite this bullish perspective, Loukas reiterated that no cycle framework is infallible. He outlined a scenario in which Bitcoin’s weekly cycle might fail—specifically if a new short-term upswing is quickly reversed, setting a lower low. Such a move, he said, could herald a cycle-wide trend change. Still, in his judgment, probabilities favor a continuation of the uptrend:

“Until we have a top in the four-year cycle, I think we have to just grin and bear [the drawdowns] and see it through […] the timing suggests to me that we are experiencing one of these periods where we are in a declining phase into a weekly cycle low before moving higher.”

At press time, BTC traded at $86,562.

Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com