'Crypto Godfather' says bitcoin has not reached its bottom and a new all-time high is off the table for 2026

Bitcoin has not reached its bottom yet, and a new all-time high is unlikely this year, said Michael Terpin, an early bitcoin investor and author of Bitcoin Supercycle: How the Crypto Calendar Can Make You Rich.

“Before a bull market for bitcoin can be called, the price needs to break back above $100,000 and no support anywhere near has manifested,” according to Terpin, who said the bottom will be seen at $57,000 sometime in October.

“Despite a double-digit gain thus far in April, we are very much still in a bitcoin fall.”

Terpin is often called ‘the crypto Godfather’ for his involvement in the industry around 2013, when the digital asset sector was still small and somewhat misunderstood by the mainstream. Among his many ventures, Terpin founded Transform Group, one of the first PR firms focused on blockchain companies, CoinAgenda, one of the first conferences in the space and BitAngels, a crypto angel investor group.

His bearish view for this cycle stands in contrast to the consensus among analysts that the February low around $60,000 marked the end of the bear market and the beginning of a new bull run. Most of these bullish analysts cited renewed inflows into U.S.-listed spot ETFs and the token’s resilience during the Iran conflict and the oil price spike as part of their outlook.

In an interview with CoinDesk, Terpin said that during Asian trading hours on Monday, “the psychological barrier of $80,000 was strongly rejected, with the high price of oil a factor.” He explained that this is typical at this stage of the bitcoin cycle, with lower highs being rejected until the final capitulation.

While Jason Fernandes, a market analyst and co-founder of AdLunam, agrees with Terpin that the bottom has not yet been seen, he disagrees with the timeline, adding that the market may not have fully capitulated yet. Capitulation is a phase in which long-term holders exit in large numbers, signaling a peak in selling pressure.

“Terpin makes a reasonable case for a later-cycle bottom, but I don’t believe bitcoin has fully capitulated yet,” Fernandes said. “Historically, durable bottoms tend to coincide with a clear exhaustion of both speculative leverage and macro uncertainty, and we’re definitely not there yet.”

Terpin insisted that the fundamentals point more toward a bottom that includes the historical average of the one-year period from each cycle’s bottom.

“That indicates somewhere around $57,000,” he said, predicting that it will happen sometime in October, about the same timeline from last year when BTC first dipped below $100,000, followed by the October 10 crash, when $19 billion in leveraged positions were wiped out in the largest single-day event on record.

Fernandes added that broader macro conditions could continue to weigh on risk assets, including bitcoin.

“Liquidity conditions remain tight, and risk assets broadly are still adjusting to a higher-for-longer rate environment,” he said. “Until we see a more decisive shift in monetary policy or a true washout event in crypto markets, downside volatility remains likely.”

‘Overly bearish’

The author and entrepreneur also said bitcoin will not see an all-time high ($ATH) this year.

However, Mati Greenspan, a crypto market analyst and founder of Quantum Economics, disagrees.

“While I’m hesitant to ever disagree with the ‘Crypto Godfather,’ his take seems overly bearish to me,” Greenspan said. “We still have lots of room to run this year, given the level of institutional adoption and growing interest a new all-time-high ($ATH) certainly seems plausible.”

AdLunam’s Fernandes also said market sentiment has not yet reached the levels typically associated with cycle bottoms.

“Sentiment hasn’t reached the kind of extreme pessimism that typically marks cycle lows,” he said. “To me, that says we may still need one more leg down – whether or not it aligns exactly with the $57,000 to $59,000 range – before a sustainable base is formed.”

Regarding Terpin’s $100,000 level, Fernandes said it serves more as a psychological signal than a strict technical threshold.

“A true bull market is defined by structural higher highs and strong capital inflows, not just a single price level,” he said. “That said, the psychological effects of hitting $100,000 could trigger exactly that behavior,” Fernandes added.