Українська
Русский
English
Opinion: Bitcoin will repeat a historical “bearish” pattern before the Fed meeting
The crypto market has entered a phase of high uncertainty amid upcoming macroeconomic events. According to analyst Jesus Martinez, the current dynamics of Bitcoin ($BTC) almost completely replicate the behavior of the asset during previous mid-cycle years.
According to the expert, the decision of the U.S. Federal Reserve will determine the direction of movement in the coming weeks.
Cyclicality versus institutional optimism
According to Martinez’s report, every mid-cycle year in the life cycle of the first cryptocurrency has consistently turned out to be bearish.
“The events of 2014, 2018, and 2022 confirm this rule without exceptions. The 2026 chart is so far following the same trajectory: after a 10% decline in January and a 15% drop in February, a 10% rise occurred in March,” he explained.
The analyst calls the current recovery a “bull trap window.” According to the historical pattern, a sharp relief rally at the beginning of March is usually followed by capitulation and new lows in April and May.
Bitcoin has already touched the $73,500 level and started to lose positions, which analyst Ben Cowen called confirmation of the negative scenario.
The founder of Alphractal, João Wedson, in turn noted that market sentiment remains extremely emotional.
“When the price drops by 10%, investors massively leave the market, but when the asset rises by 5%, social networks fill with screenshots of positions with 20x leverage. Such bias prevents participants from objectively assessing risks,” he said.
Capital rotation and ETF inflows
However, according to Martinez, the current cycle also has unique differences that were not present in previous years.
“Last week inflows into spot Bitcoin ETFs amounted to $767 million, and positive dynamics persisted for five consecutive days for the first time in a year. During the same period gold ETFs recorded a record capital outflow. Investors began massively shifting funds from gold into digital assets,” he emphasized.
Aggressive accumulation is also continuing by the company Strategy. According to the expert’s calculations, the company is buying an average of 1,940 $BTC per day through STRC instruments.
During the past week the corporation purchased another 22,337 $BTC.
“At the same time, the largest Wall Street players are entering the market: Nasdaq has partnered with Kraken, and the NYSE has invested in OKX for the tokenization of the $126 trillion stock market,” Martinez reminded.
CME gap
According to the analyst, on the CME exchange chart there remains an unfilled price gap in the range from $80,000 to $84,000.
“Since August 2025, nine out of ten such gaps have been closed. Importantly, on May 29 CME will switch to a 24-hour trading mode, which could make the current gap one of the last in history due to the absence of trading pauses,” Martinez said.
He added that all market attention is now focused on March 18, when the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) will announce its decision on the key interest rate.
According to FedWatch by CME Group, the probability of maintaining the current rate level is estimated at 99.1%.
Source: FedWatch
See also: "Bitget CEO Gracy Chen warns of an approaching bear market"
