Bitcoin Bulls Keep Talking, Price Keeps Failing
If BTC can't hold key moving averages, the trend is still weak no matter who is pounding the table.
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Last summer, Bitcoin struggled to hold a breakout above $120,000, yet guru after guru kept calling for $150,000 or even $250,000 in a matter of weeks. And this was not just Tom Lee. Michael Saylor, Eric Trump, Cathie Wood, Anthony Pompliano, and plenty of others were pounding the table, telling people to load up.
I hope they are right over the long run. I trade the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) , and I also own it in a long-term account because I like the bigger thesis.
Does BTC ever reach the dizzying levels Tom Lee and Michael Saylor claim it will? No idea. I hope so.
But trading is not about hope. My decisions are based on charts. If charts are a visual record of supply and demand, then it doesn’t matter whether you are looking at Bitcoin, Nvidia (NVDA) , Amazon (AMZN) , SPDR S&P 500 (SPY) , or a futures contract. The volatility changes, but one's interpretation of trends doesn’t. Read the tape and respect what price is telling you.
Keep it simple. A few moving averages will do most of the work.
Bitcoin got hit hard in early October 2025. It bounced off the 200-day simple moving average (in green), but it couldn’t reclaim the 50-day SMA (in purple) on multiple attempts. That was the warning. By early November, BTC had also broken the 200-day SMA, and once that happened, the bears were in control.
From my seat, if price is not stabilizing above the 50-day and 200-day SMA, then Bitcoin (or any instrument) is in a bear trend. It's really that simple.
Fast forward to 2026, and BTC did push above the 50-day SMA in early January, but demand disappeared fast, and price rolled over again. That break mattered. It was a clean signal that demand was not just fading at resistance. It was failing at a level that should have held if the bulls were ready to fight.
Bitcoin is hammering out another base, this time in the low $60,000s to low $70,000s range. It may hold and turn into a tradable rally. It may fail again. Either way, the setup is the same. Let price prove demand is back before getting aggressive on the long side.
I am not an active short seller, so I’m not doing much with BTC here. I would love to tell you a bullish setup is forming, but I don’t see much to like at the moment.
If you’re a long-only scalper, I would wait for price to get back above the 8-day and 21-day exponential moving averages (EMA). Even then, expect demand to fade as price approaches the 50-day SMA.
Bitcoin and crypto will have their day in the sun. I still believe that. But sustained rallies need time and real demand, not just crazy predictions from TV personalities. Maybe news becomes the catalyst. Maybe it doesn’t. Until the chart improves, treat BTC the same way you would treat any weak chart and stay patient.
At the time of publication, Byrne was long IBIT in long-term accounts.
