PlanB, the anonymous analyst behind the stock-to-flow model, says that bitcoin’s decline has left markets looking for four logical paths to a bear market, starting with the classic 80% drawdown where the decline is already in place.
In a post on X and a follow-up video dated Feb. 4, PlanB initiated a debate about where bitcoin is experiencing bear markets in relation to long-term trend metrics, while arguing that the lack of momentum in the past may translate into a shallow reset this time around.
Bitcoin closed in January at $78,000, he said, marking a roughly 40% decline from the cycle’s all-time high of $126,000. On his chart, the 200-week moving average closed at $58,000 and realized the price at $55,000, while the RSI for January ends at 49, a level he considers a turning point.
“RSI here, 49. RSI, as you know, is an indicator between 0 and 100. And everything above 50 is an uptrend. Everything below 50 is a downtrend,” said PlanB. “So 49 is below 50, downtrend. Bear market … like 2014-15, 2018-19 and 2022-23.”
Related Reading
4 Bitcoin Bear Market Scenarios
From there, he explained four scenarios of how a decline could occur. The first is the historical “worst case” that still sits in traders’ mental models: an 80% drop from the top. With an ATH of $126,000, PlanB said that would mean a move to about $25,000 — “somewhere between these two lines” on his chart, though he admitted that “it’s going to look really weird.”
The second scenario is very common with his backtests: the bottom of the 200-week moving average and the price received, which he attached to the level of $50,000–$60,000. PlanB pointed to previous cycles where the price finally “came down[s] at moving available price levels,” highlighting 2022 and 2015 as examples where the RSI trough coincided with those long-term anchors.
The third scenario is shallower: a trailing stop just above the previous cycle’s high, around $69,000–$70,000. PlanB’s thinking is that the preceding bull phase looks muted in his indicators, which could suppress the bear’s intensity.
“So what I’m thinking is… because the bull market was so weak… it didn’t have red dots, high RSI peaks,” he said. “As a result, the bear market can be very small. And that can mean, for example, going back to the level or being above the…
Related Reading
The fourth condition is what traders always want on their screens: that the market has already printed its bottom. PlanB wrote that “yesterday’s 72.9k was $72.9k,” and repeated in the video that “maybe the $72.800 we saw a few days ago is already low.” Notably, the price of BTC has already dropped to $70,140 on Wednesday, making this situation ineffective.
IMO there are 4 scenarios for a bitcoin bear market:
1) -80% from ATH $126k => $25k
2) up to 200w MA / rental value => $50k-60k
3) drop to just above previous ATH => $70k
4) yesterday’s $72.9k was lowI discuss these situations in my new video:
👉— PlanB (@100trillionUSD) February 4, 2026
PlanB also updated its stock-to-flow framework, saying it remains at $500,000 as a signal of the value of the shortage while emphasizing that it is not designed to call conversion points. “Stock to flow doesn’t say anything about tops and bottoms,” he said, adding that it talks about a “four-year average” and a “phase change” every four or five years.
That warning set up his final point: the pattern of the cycle may change. PlanB noted that in its four-year cycle view, the peak historically comes in the first or second year after a reduction, but “didn’t happen after the halving in 2024.” In his opinion, that leaves room for a reverse phase later in the cycle, as his near-term framework remains focused on whether bitcoin pulls to the price found and the 200-week average, holds the area of the previous ATH, or confirms the lower price in the $70,000s.
At press time, BTC traded at $
The featured image was created with DALL.E, a chart from TradingView.com
