Summary
- Bitcoin has started 2026 with two consecutive losing quarters, falling about 22% in the first quarter and 14% in the second, a pattern previously seen only in the structurally bearish years of 2018 and 2022.
- While bitcoin’s historical seasonality points to weak third quarters and strong fourth quarters, those patterns broke down in 2018 and 2022, when deeper market stresses turned typically strong year-end rallies into steep declines.
- The current downturn appears driven less by panic than by steady selling tied to record outflows from U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs, subdued on-chain activity, a strong dollar and investor rotation into AI stocks, with some analysts eyeing $40,000 as the next key support level.
Bitcoin BTC$58,301.67 closed the first half of 2026 down in both quarters, a rare start that puts the year in company it would rather avoid.
The largest cryptocurrency fell 22.2% in the first quarter and another 14.09% in the second, as reported by Coinglass data, and was trading just above $59,000 on Wednesday as the third quarter began.
Consecutive losing quarters to open a year is something bitcoin has done only twice before in its history, in 2018 and 2022. Both rank among the worst years in its history.
The second half of those two years offered no rescue. In 2018, after a weak first half, the third quarter eked out a 3.6% gain before the fourth quarter collapsed 42%. In 2022, the third quarter fell 2.6% and the fourth dropped nearly 15%.
Both were structural bear markets, 2018 driven by the unwinding of the initial-coin-offering bubble and 2022 by the-then failures of the Terra stablecoin and the FTX exchange.
