Has Bitcoin Really Bottomed? Analysts Weigh In 

There is a lot of debate about whether Bitcoin has bottomed and will recover or if more pain is ahead. 

Bitcoin’s recovery from its dump below $81,000 late last week started off well but appears to have stalled over the past 24 hours. Now questions are being asked about whether it truly has bottomed or whether it will fall even further.

A Santiment analyst said on Wednesday that social media sentiment has turned notably bearish, with increased declarations of a bear market. However, historical patterns show that major turnarounds often occur when retail hope is lost – the market moves opposite to crowd expectations.

Additionally, Bitcoin’s 30-day and 365-day MVRV ratios, which measure unrealized profit and loss, remain in negative territory, indicating traders are holding losses.

Whale Selling Pressure Continues

Derivatives speculators are also starting to short again, expecting BTC to fall further, but not at the volumes seen in mid-October. Several factors also suggest caution about calling a definitive bottom, including a decline in network activity and active addresses.

More critically, whale wallets holding between 10 and 10,000 BTC have been shrinking their holdings for six straight weeks after accumulating through early October, the analyst noted. These findings were confirmed by CryptoQuant.

The analyst remained skeptical about a sustained recovery to six figures while the whales continue to offload the asset, but predicted a short-term bounce.

“Overall, data points to the most likely scenario being a short-term bounce. A rebound above $90K again soon wouldn’t be a major surprise at all,”

📊 Bitcoin’s depressing slump to $80K has been followed by an (at least slightly) encouraging bounce back up to $88K. Now, questions are arising about whether last week’s bottom was the best buy opportunity we’ll get. We explore in our latest deep dive. 👇https://t.co/4Hja2WY15J pic.twitter.com/D29wrva0Ie

— Santiment (@santimentfeed) November 26, 2025

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Crypto analyst ‘Brett’ observed that Bitcoin has never made a new all-time high after closing below the 50-week moving average, without touching the 200-week first.

“The 50-week has been crossed, the 100-week is currently acting as support. If we break that level, the 200-week is next up,” they said.

This paints an extremely bearish scenario as the 200-week simple moving average is currently at $56,000, according to TradingView.

Recovery Remains Sluggish

Bitcoin bounced to $89,000, but “momentum still hasn’t ignited,” noted Swissblock analysts.

“It remains deeply negative, at levels typical of late-stage capitulation. Until momentum turns, every bounce is just a tactical reaction.”

Meanwhile, analyst James Check identified more leverage that may be flushed out, cautioning that BTC could wick down into the $70,000 to $80,000 zone “to flush the final leverage pockets.”

BTC has been trading sideways for the past day, failing to break above $88,000 and hovering around $87,500 at the time of writing.