Bitcoin Falls to $86K After Peaking at $94K, ETF Cycle After ETF Cycle

• The peak was at $94K, now down to $86K as the selling increased.
• It was above the price peak 54 weeks after the ETF launch, just as QQQ.
• Retail traders moved funds into new tokens, weakening Bitcoin’s rally.

It is following a historical ETF cycle pattern and peaking at $94,468 before going in for a correction phase. The prolonged effect of selling continued in the market from January 20, 2025, with Bitcoin currently priced at $86,170. The percentage deducted weekly is a significant 8.64. The timing is precisely a year and a week after the launch of the Bitcoin ETF in 2024, almost the same as a pattern with its earlier counterpart, the Nasdaq QQQ ETF, launched in 1999. Analysts have noted that QQQ also topped 54 weeks post-launch before entering a prolonged correction, suggesting that Bitcoin may be following the same path.

I still think about the QQQ and BTC ETF comparison a lot, even though I keep wanting to see some type of divergence. But rather than diverge, they continue to present similarities.

I see a lot of people screaming that it’s the golden age of crypto but Bitcoin has basically done… https://t.co/y7NNeyyvs8 pic.twitter.com/o6AOl7j2N1

— Benjamin Cowen (@intocryptoverse) March 8, 2025

Designated as “Inauguration Day” on January 20, 2025, possibly culminated in a major paradigm shift for the market participants. Some would probably still think Bitcoin had an upward path from that day on. However, from that point in time, Bitcoin has been on a downward journey. Traders have grown paranoid with the historical comparisons to QQQ ETF because both instruments achieved all-time highs at the 54-week mark and then saw very strong resistance. The post-ETF eruption that lifted the cryptocurrency from just below $30,000 to nearly $100,000 may have run out of steam, and liquidity has started to move away from the crypto space.

Retail Liquidity Drained as Market Faces Correction

Market correction is another factor that has affected Bitcoin’s price downwards, apart from the ETF cycle. For example, the sight of all these new celebrity and political-sponsored meme coins has done very well at attracting retail money from Bitcoin. Capital rotation was created by the sudden surge in all new tokens, whose induction subsequently weakened Bitcoin’s ability to sustain its highs. Thus, as retail investors busily devote their resources to speculative projects, dominance over Bitcoin steadily began loosening, feasting further into the current downtrend.

So long as Bitcoin continues to follow QQQ, there might be a lot of room for the market to end up consolidating for some years. For peak performance, QQQ played a range game for years before returning to the uptrend. The same might happen to Bitcoin, where the long-term resistance band will be from $80K to $100K. This correction could continue much longer depending on the general liquidity trend or institutional positioning. Traders’ optimism regarding the bounce notwithstanding, historical precedent would suggest that Bitcoin might need to sit through a lengthy accumulation period before reclaiming its previous highs.

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