Analyst: The era of parabolic Bitcoin price surges may have ended, and the market is becoming more mature.

BlockBeats message, April 1, Coindesk analyst Omkar Godbole said in a post that Bitcoin has continued to hover around $70,000 since the beginning of February this year, far below the 2023 to 2025 bull market highs of $126,000. $70,000 was the historical peak of the 2019 to 2022 market cycle, meaning this current bear market has retreated to the peak of the previous cycle. This phenomenon is fairly rare. In the bear markets of 2014 and 2018, Bitcoin was never pulled back to the prior cycle’s high; the only exception was 2022, when the price fell below the 2017 high of $20,000, but analysts at the time attributed it to crypto scams and large-scale deleveraging. The special thing about the current pullback is that it is happening in an environment lacking extreme catalysts—only as part of the natural fading of the bear market cycle.

Each new bull cycle is no longer characterized by a parabolic surge; it has become increasingly difficult to push prices far beyond prior highs, and old highs are no longer untouchable. This is a typical manifestation of the law of diminishing returns: as the price of Bitcoin keeps getting higher, the amount of capital required to push prices up also grows larger. The era in which small inflows could trigger major rallies has basically become history, so price action has become more robust and predictable. The advancement of Bitcoin’s institutionalization and the expansion of the derivatives market have likewise helped smooth out extreme volatility. Traders now have structured tools for volatility, timing, and market direction, rather than simply betting on price increases. This is entirely different from the pre-2020 era, when trading was nearly limited to the spot market and active participants were often staunch Bitcoin bulls, rushing in to buy whenever the price dipped slightly.

Old highs often form strong support due to “anchoring bias”—investors who missed the initial breakout tend to buy when the price returns to familiar ranges, providing fuel for the next market move. This also explains why the recent downward trend has stalled around $70,000. If Bitcoin experiences a strong rebound from the current level, it may mean the bear market is nearing its end; but if the law of diminishing returns continues to play out, the next upward trend may be milder, showing an orderly pattern similar to traditional financial markets rather than the wild, speculative frenzy of the old days.