Key takeaways
- Cryptoquant’s Ki Young Ju says top analysts have turned bearish on Bitcoin, leaving him a rare bull predicting BTC near $70,000 in the near future.
- He warns that the bitcoin crisis could persist into early 2027, with stagnation posing a greater risk than a crash.
- Cryptoquant views the bearish consensus as a sentiment gauge that could reverse again in 2026.
A change of feeling among the pros
The founder of onchain analytics company Cryptoquant, Ki Young Ju, told his followers this week that “ Bitcoin the analyst consensus is currently leaning bearish“, a brutal read on the mood within professional trading desks after months of price action. In a follow-up article, he presented the signal less as a forecast and more as a mirror of the crowd, adding:
“On a global level, it’s probably best to think of this as a market sentiment gauge. Even when we try to select the best analysts, the result still tends to resemble that of a larger group. market sentiment. To turn this into true alpha, we will need to filter out the best analysts with a strong track record.
Ki Young Ju didn’t hide where that left him, presenting himself as one of the last holdouts still prone to recovery as the professionals all around him appear to be bracing for further downside.
The backdrop to a year spent bleeding
THE bearish the tilt didn’t appear out of nowhere, given bitcoin lost almost $25,000 since January 1slipping below $70,000 and reducing its market dominance around 58%. The pullback erased much of the optimism that defined the previous cycle and left even longtime bulls wondering when the next step higher will arrive.
The head of Cryptoquant has spent weeks warning that the discomfort could persist, arguing that bitcointhe slowdown could run until early 2027citing a cascade of profit-taking that historically depresses investor returns for about 18 months before a sustainable bottom forms. This decision is based on the idea that the market has not yet rebuilt the cushion of unrealized profits that it usually needs to fuel a sustainable recovery.
Until that base is reestablished, he argues, rebounds are more likely to fade than sustain, a dynamic that partly explains why so many analysts have changed position from cautious to downright defensive.
Boredom, not a crash, is the biggest threat
For Ki Young Ju, the real danger is not a violent collapse but a slow slide into uselessness. In this regard, he has repeatedly pointed out:market boredom,“that is, prolonged stagnation that drains attention and capital, as the condition that could inflict the most lasting damage on the economy. bitcointhe story.
This formulation defines two very different types of bearish scenarios, one of which is a sharp pullback that eliminates leverage and quickly resets positioning, often paving the way for a rollback. The other is a long flat period in which prices neither collapse nor recover, and traders simply walk away. The second scenario, he says, is the hardest to escape, as it offers no obvious catalyst to force capital back into the market.
This concern has practical implications for the broader digital asset economy, where trading volumes, fees, and new project launches tend to decline when prices remain calm for extended periods.
A lone bull reads the crowd
Ki Young Ju’s desire to stand out from his peers is, in some ways, the whole point of monitoring feelings. Indicators like the one he describes are most useful at the extremes, that is, when almost everyone has turned bearish, the consensus itself can become a contrarian signal, because sellers have already largely sold.
The profitability of this reading depends on factors largely outside of a single analyst’s control, including macro liquidity, institutional appetite, and Bitcoin’s ability to reclaim the dominance it has ceded in recent months.
