Bitcoin (BTC)’s Sideways Phase Is a Trap for a Deeper Crash (Analyst)

Bitcoin could revisit $87,000 during the consolidation, but only as an opportunity to add shorts, and not as confirmation of a trend.

Bitcoin (BTC) staged a modest recovery of almost 2% during Asian trading hours on Monday after briefly dipping below $70,000 over the weekend. But prominent market commentators believe the carnage is not over yet.

For example, Doctor Profit believes that the assets are entering an extended sideways phase that is not a bullish consolidation but a preparation for a deeper decline in the coming months.

Sideways, then down

According to the analyst’s findings, Bitcoin forms a new trading box between approximately $57,000 and $87,000, which represents a wide range of 33%. He expects price action to remain largely within these levels for weeks or even months.

Doctor profit declared that this sideways behavior should not be interpreted as strength, but instead as a structural phase that typically precedes a collapse in a broader bear market. Drawing a parallel to 2024, the analyst said BTC spent an entire year consolidating between $58,000 and $74,000 before breaking above $100,000. He repeatedly warned at the time that this range would later serve as a reference level during the next bear market.

That scenario is now playing out: Bitcoin is once again trading in the same price zone, but this time in a bearish context, where former areas of consolidation act as structure rather than sustainable support. He expects that once the current sideways phase is complete, the crypto assets will succumb to the box and eventually target the $44,000-$50,000 region in the coming weeks or months.

Doctor Profit said he is buying spot Bitcoin between $57,000 and $60,000, which he considers the local bottom of the current range, but not the final macro bottom of the bear market. He added that this area is likely to be tested several times during the sideways phase, making it suitable for range trades, while upside during this period could be as high as $87,000 depending on market strength.

However, the analyst made it clear that $87,000 is not a guaranteed target and only represents the upper limit of what he expects during the consolidation. If the price approaches that level, he said he would consider adding existing short positions between $115,000 and $125,000, which he will continue to fully hold.

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In the meantime, there is no immediate major disadvantage, as long as the market remains within a certain bandwidth according to Doctor Profit’s analysis. He described the coming period as “long and boring,” while adding that the most aggressive long-term buying will only occur much lower, between the low $50,000s and low $40,000s, where he believes Bitcoin will eventually bottom out, possibly around September or October.

“We are in a bear market. The upswings are temporary and exist to build liquidity for further downside.”

No relief for BTC bulls

Another pseudonymous analyst, Filbfilb, posted a Bitcoin chart on

His findings show that BTC is trading below the 50-week exponential moving average, near $95,300, a level the analyst believes is a key trend marker. Filbfilb suggested that losing this level makes the crypto asset vulnerable as the recent price action looks more like a bear market than a recovery.

Market commentator BitBull too shared a similar prediction, saying that BTC’s “final capitulation has not yet occurred” and that “a real bottom will form below the $50,000 level, where most ETF buyers will be underwater.”