As the last edition of this column was written, the United States had just expelled Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro from that country in a special forces operation and flown him to New York to face charges. Weeks later, as I write this column, the United States and Israel have launched a military attack on Iran, ostensibly to counter Iran’s march toward successful nuclear weapons development.
Suffice it to say, these should not normal times in geopolitics. In a hyper-connected world, this is important for Canadian investors as these events could have far-reaching consequences – especially for a globally traded, institutionally held asset like Bitcoin (BTC). More on this later within the column.
BTC extends losses – what’s next for the crypto market?
As the chart below shows, the value of BTC is down about 47% from its October 2025 all-time high (based on a 7-day moving average). Certainly it hasn’t fallen 70-80% prefer it did in 2018, 2020 and 2022 – but a drop of just about 50% is a stark reminder that BTC is a highly volatile asset that is barely intended for aggressive investors with an especially high risk tolerance.
Based on an evaluation by Glassnode (a research firm specializing in on-chain evaluation of digital assets), the BTC market has not yet shown definitive signs of recovery. Based on an evaluation of previous BTC market cycles, Glass knot believes that the longer BTC trades between $60,000 and $70,000, the upper the likelihood of further price decline.
The research in query suggests that the $70,000 level is a crucial technical marker; Therefore, BTC would want to trade convincingly above this level for some time for confidence to return to the market.
When will BTC get better and rise again?
Let’s put this in perspective: With hindsight, we will say that BTC has been in a bear market since October 2025, when it peaked at over $124,000. This signifies that BTC has fallen by almost 50% in only 5 months. Of course, that is nothing recent in BTC history, as similar capitulations have occurred in all cyclical bear markets of the past. Nonetheless, the dramatic decline is deterring all but essentially the most convinced BTC investors.
The best crypto platforms and apps
We have rated the very best crypto exchanges in Canada.
The article continues below promoting
X
Those who held on to their BTC investments through the turmoil of the last five months are understandably searching for signs of when the bearish trend might reverse. Markets are inherently unpredictable, but history offers some patterns to ponder. In the last two cyclical bear markets, BTC bottomed roughly twelve months after its all-time high, as shown within the table below.
There is not any guarantee that this historical pattern will repeat itself, and it’s best to be cautious when using historical analogies when making investment decisions.
Between geopolitics and rates of interest
As I wrote within the previous edition of this column, BTC’s fate in 2026 will likely rely on two fundamental aspects: geopolitical uncertainty and the direction of rates of interest.
An increase in US-induced geopolitical risk could prompt investors to think about BTC, however the extent to which this happens will rely on inflation and rates of interest. This signifies that while investors might consider investing in so-called hard assets equivalent to gold and BTC to hedge against geopolitical uncertainties, their inclination to achieve this could also be limited if liquidity conditions are expected to be tight.
The attacks on Iran could destabilize oil prices, result in higher inflation expectations and result in a hawkish stance from the Fed – and this might scare investors away from dangerous assets (like stocks, gold and Bitcoin) to relatively risk-averse assets like bonds and money.
While it’s tempting to attempt to outperform other investors by attempting to predict the direction of the crypto market, it’s next to not possible to achieve this accurately and consistently. In such an unpredictable world, it’s probably clever to reconsider considered one of the basics of investing: asset allocation. For most crypto investors, BTC probably makes up 2% to 10% of their overall portfolio. Instead of attempting to predict where the market goes, investors could also be higher off buying or selling BTC based on the rebalancing needs of their portfolios.
Cryptocurrency price fluctuations are common
Cryptocurrencies equivalent to BTC, ETH, XRP, SOL, BNB and others are speculative and highly volatile assets which are subject to significant price fluctuations. Even stablecoins that look like “safe” will be dangerous in the event that they should not sufficiently backed by real-world assets.
Investing in Bitcoin and other crypto coins involves significant market, technology and regulatory risks. Only put money into cryptocurrencies when it aligns along with your broader investment goals, time horizon, and risk profile, and at all times remain vigilant against crypto scams.
