Bitcoin may have already printed its cycle bottom near $58,000, according to James Check, founder and lead analyst at Checkonchain, who said two capitulation events have likely absorbed much of the market’s selling pressure.
Bitcoin reached a record of just over $126,000 in October 2025 and was trading around $77,400 at the time of writing, nearly 39% below that peak. Some traders still expect BTC to carve out another low in October 2026 based on the historical four-year cycle. In July, analyst Benjamin Cowen said cycle-duration data and the US midterm-election calendar pointed to a fourth-quarter bottoming window.
Check points to two separate capitulation phases
In an interview on Cointelegraph’s Proof of Thesis, Check described Bitcoin’s February slide toward $60,000 as a "price-pain capitulation," a phase in which investors who bought near the top sold at steep losses.
He said a second phase, which he called a "time-pain capitulation," took shape around $58,000 in June and July after months of sideways trading left holders questioning whether Bitcoin would recover at all.
"What’s the difference between $58,000 and $59,000 or $60,000? Nothing," Check told Cointelegraph. "It’s the six months that separated them. That’s the actual difference."
That reading pushes back on the idea that the market still needs to wait for an October low. In Check’s view, the capitulation signals usually associated with a bear-market bottom had already appeared months earlier.
He said about $300 billion in Bitcoin cost basis was concentrated between $58,000 and $70,000. During the rebound that followed, roughly 4 million BTC moved from an unrealized loss into profit. Check also said long-term holders now control about 80% of Bitcoin wealth and are more likely to wait for much higher prices than sell into a short-term bounce.
Why he says the four-year cycle can mislead traders
Check said traders make a mistake when they anchor too heavily to the four-year cycle because there is no mechanical reason for it to keep repeating.
"Ask, ‘Well, now what do I do?’ long before your compass breaks," he told Cointelegraph. "It’s like a broken clock. It’s right twice a day. Just assume it’s broken and find something better."
He said past cycle dates do not explain why investors capitulate. Instead of relying on the calendar, traders should look at cost basis, unrealized and realized losses, holder profitability, and whether experienced investors are accumulating or distributing coins.
Calendar dates, he said, should only serve as context after signs of exhaustion or capitulation have already shown up in the market. "Look for the evidence, not the calendar," Check said.
Grayscale’s Zach Pandl sees a similar level
Grayscale head of research Zach Pandl reached a similar conclusion in a recent interview on Cointelegraph’s Trade Secrets.
"I’m willing to stick my neck out and make a guess that prices bottomed back at $58,000 at the end of June," Pandl told Cointelegraph.
Pandl said the downturn brought less despair than previous Bitcoin bear markets, but it also followed a bull market that produced less euphoria. In his view, that combination may have led to a more contained decline.
He also pointed to Bitcoin’s ability to absorb negative developments without extending its losses. "When price in an asset class, whether it’s crypto or anything else, stops going down on bad news, that’s usually a sign that it’s oversold," Pandl said.
Onchain signals are still mixed
Not all onchain data points in the same direction.
HODL Waves data showed that Bitcoin supply held for one to seven days rose only from 1.97% on July 1 to 2.35% on July 5. Analyst Willy Woo interpreted that as an unusually muted response from dip-buyers.
CryptoQuant data, however, showed that short-term holders had remained partially profitable for 30 straight days, the longest such stretch of 2026. The analytics firm said that pattern has appeared during previous Bitcoin market recoveries.