Is Bitcoin Really Headed to $38,000? NYDIG’s October Scenario, Explained

A Bleak Scenario

Bitcoin fiscal services steadfast NYDIG has mapped retired a script successful which bitcoin’s descent extends to $38,000-$39,000 by October, if the 2025-2026 downturn follows the extent and duration of the market’s erstwhile large resets. The script appeared successful the firm’s second-quarter review, “ Leverage Not Spot Demand Is Driving Bitcoin While Value and Momentum Buyers Wait,” which was published past week.

The steadfast was explicit astir wherefore the aged playbook is backmost connected traders’ screens, noting:

“ Bitcoin’s 2025-2026 drawdown is bringing the 4-year rhythm communicative backmost into focus, due to the fact that the timing and operation progressively lucifer the anterior reset years of 2014, 2018 and 2022 adjacent though the way has not matched those drawdowns exactly.”

Bitcoin traded adjacent $64,500 astatine the clip of the report, down astir 30% since the commencement of the twelvemonth and astir 50% beneath its October 2025 all-time precocious of $126,080. Earlier this period the marketplace carved retired a 21-month debased erstwhile bitcoin crashed to $58,035, concisely wiping astir $40 cardinal from the wider crypto system successful a azygous day.

The Four-Year Math

Bitcoin’s four-year rhythm refers to the market’s humanities bushed of a peak, a year-long contraction, and a recovery, loosely anchored to the network’s halving schedule. The bear markets of 2014, 2018 and 2022 produced peak-to-trough declines successful the scope of 75% to 85%.

Applying a 2022-style diminution of astir 70% to the October 2025 highest of $126,080 lands astir precisely connected NYDIG’s $38,000-$39,000 corridor, with the timing pointing to a imaginable level by October 2026, 4 years aft the past cycle’s bottom.

NYDIG stopped good abbreviated of calling the fig a forecast, noting that 2025 was bitcoin’s slightest volatile twelvemonth connected record, which could compress the drawdown and nutrient a shallower landing than erstwhile cycles. In an earlier note, the steadfast besides observed that the classical capitulation markers person not yet appeared, penning that the marketplace has seen “no long-term-holder capitulation, nary terminal insolvencies, and nary reset.”

Wall Street’s Range of Answers

The $38,000 script is the astir bearish of the large table calls, fixed K33 Research has argued the opposite, i.e. the dip adjacent $60,000 already represented this bear market’s maximum drawdown, with consolidation betwixt $60,000 and $75,000 ahead. Standard Chartered has likewise suggested the bottommost formed astir the $59,000 level, portion Galaxy Digital has floated a diminution toward $40,000.

Separately, Cryptoquant CEO Ki Young Ju has warned the bear market could agelong into early 2027, portion Grayscale sees two paths retired of the downturn hinging connected macro catalysts successful the coming months.

With much than fractional of each BTC sitting astatine an unrealized loss (a information that has accompanied each anterior rhythm floor), analysts hold the marketplace is precocious successful the contraction but are divided connected however overmuch symptom remains.

NYDIG’s ain communicative leaves the question open, with the steadfast characterizing the marketplace arsenic leverage-driven alternatively than demand-driven (where worth and momentum buyers are waiting connected the sidelines).