The bull market signals
Bitcoin spent 310 days straight below its 360-day moving average, then reclaimed that level - the same thing that happened at the end of the last two bear markets. It also flashed a bullish cross that points to a possible 30% gain, which would put Bitcoin well over $100,000 by year end.
Institutions including Franklin Templeton (BEN), Fidelity and others say a crypto bull market is underway. That has not happened in any past cycle.
Bitcoin moved above its 200-day moving average on August 19th; the prior time was August 24th, 2025, after which Bitcoin jumped to over 100,000. Since 2010, whenever Bitcoin sits above its 200-day moving average, the 6-month forward return averages 193%, with a 80% positive win rate. Since 2012 there have been nine crosses above the 200-day moving average, and eight of the nine marked bull markets.
Bitcoin ETF flows turned positive year to date, which does not occur in a bear market. In the third quarter crypto beat other macro assets by a wide margin. Ethereum (ETH) beat the S&P 500 by 6,500 basis points, and it did this during a hawkish Fed, rising oil prices, rising global bond yields, and tightening financial conditions. Beating everything under those conditions is a bull market sign.
Tom DeMark, exclusive adviser to Bitmine, says Ethereum will keep trading higher, and a market that rallies 100% off its low often signals a trend reversal. October 5th marks the bottom of the 4-year cycle, meaning the bear market ended and a bull market is starting.
Why this cycle could be the largest ever
Tokenization. This is a bigger driver than past cycles. The 2016 cycle was an ICO boom, mostly retail. The 2019 to 2021 cycle was NFTs, mostly retail. Last year's stablecoin boom was cut short by the October 10th mass debt and auto-deleveraging event. Now it is different and institutional. BlackRock (BLK) wants most of its assets held as tokenized assets. Robinhood's (HOOD) Vlad Tenev says this is the start of a super cycle and that everything running on traditional rails will move onchain. Total global liquid assets run about 200 trillion; the top three - stocks, bonds, and credit - are 160 trillion. Every dollar tokenized or held as TVL on an L1 blockchain creates about $1 of value for that blockchain. If 10% moves onchain, that is a $16 trillion market. Much of this is built on Ethereum - BlackRock, JP Morgan (JPM), Robinhood - and Ethereum has the deepest community and more developers than every other blockchain combined.
Wealth transfer. Tenev notes a $100 trillion wealth transfer is happening. In the last three years over $1.5 trillion has been inherited, mostly passing from baby boomers to millennials and Gen X, which shifts what gets owned. In the 2019 to 2021 cycle inheritance was small, about $450 billion. In this cycle as much as $1 to $2 trillion may be inherited, with a clear shift away from credit toward digital assets and equities. Much of that money leaves private equity and private credit, which face strong pressure as yields rise.
Institutional FOMO. Crypto was the best performing macro asset while financial conditions tightened, so a fourth quarter with a bull market starting should bring more buying.
DATs (digital asset treasuries). Only four DATs trade above NAV, including Bitmine, but the rest should recover in the bull market and absorb supply. Ethereum DATs together own $21 billion of Ethereum, a large share of the network. No past cycle had an entity soaking up that much supply. With demand recovering and supply shrinking, big price moves should follow.
AI link. Crypto is a downstream AI story. As memory and chips corrected, the Mag 7, software, and crypto gained - which is what happened. AI agents will carry digital wallets and take a rising share of all traffic. Keeping humans in the loop is why crypto has a role.
China is the next super cycle
When China returns to crypto, another super cycle starts. Joseph Chi, CEO of a Solana (SOL) treasury company, has over 20 years in global finance, including head of global investment banking Asia and head of global capital markets Asia at UBS (UBS). He says Hong Kong is China's testing ground.
Hong Kong plans to pass legislation this year setting up a licensing system for crypto trading, custody, advisory, and management services. The city's financial services and treasury secretary outlined the plan at a legislative council briefing, and it would cover how investors buy, hold, and manage digital assets.
China wants in, and not slowly. The Chinese government is watching the technology very closely. Early on the Asian population was a bigger share of crypto users and traders than the rest of the world; China's crackdown slowed that, and the US market picked up. Once the Chinese government finds a way to manage crypto and allow trading access plus use of the technology by companies and for cross-border trade, crypto will go through another super cycle.
