Intro

Hey Degens,

If you only looked at the BTC chart, you’d swear the bull market died last week.

Price slid back under $85K, sentiment flipped to full doom, and everyone on CT suddenly became an expert on “macro topping structures.”

But step away from the candles for a second and look at what capital is actually doing:

• Republic just locked in $100M via a zero-interest note to stack more ETH on its balance sheet.

• Kraken raised $800M at a $20B valuation and quietly filed its IPO paperwork.

• Tether is pushing deeper into commodity trade finance, deploying $1.5B in credit and scaling its real-world lending arm.

• Strategy (yes, Saylor’s crew) bought another 8,178 BTC for $835.6M — their biggest buy since July — now sitting on nearly 650,000 BTC.

If this is a bear market, someone forgot to tell the people wiring nine-figure checks.

Let’s connect the price action with what’s happening behind the scenes, and answer the real question: what kind of “bear” are we actually in?

TL;DR

• BTC has dropped 20%+ from the peak and dipped below $90K, with negative sentiment and weak follow-through on bounces — that does meet the classic “technical bear market” checklist.

• Research from 21shares and others splits bears into two types:

  • Cyclical bears: ~84% drops, multi-year pain (2.5 years).

  • Short-term bears: ~36% drops, 2–3 months of max discomfort.

• This cycle (since late 2022) already saw multiple 20–40% pullbacks, five of which matched those “short-term bear” stats.

• While retail screams “it’s over,” big money is still deploying:

  • Republic: $100M zero-interest note to stack ETH.

  • Kraken: $800M raise + confidential S-1, $20B valuation.

  • Tether: scaling a $1.5B trade finance book in commodities.

  • Strategy: 8,178 BTC added, now near 650k BTC in treasury.

• The real edge now isn’t guessing labels. It’s understanding this looks far more like a short-term bear inside a structural bull — and positioning like you want to survive both outcomes.

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Main Event
Is This Really a Bear Market and Does It Matter?

Let’s start with the uncomfortable truth:

Yes, by the textbook definition, BTC is in a technical bear market.

What the “technical bear” checklist looks like

Eliézer Ndinga (Global Head of Research at 21shares) basically lays out the standard criteria used in both TradFi and crypto:

A market is in a bear phase when:

• Price has dropped 20%+ from the previous peak over a sustained period.

• Negative sentiment is persistent, not just a one-day Twitter meltdown.

• Trading volumes weaken, especially on bounces.

• Dips stop getting aggressively bought — buyers wait, sellers press.

Sound familiar?

• BTC is down more than 20% from the $126K highs, trading under $90K.

• Sentiment is glued to fear, not euphoria.

• Bounces are getting sold, not extended.

• Volumes and spot appetite don’t look like “buy-the-dip mania.”

So yes, technically: we’re in a bear market.

But that’s only half the story.

Not all bear markets are built the same

Ndinga splits bear markets into two flavors:

1. Cyclical bear markets

   • Average drop: ~84%

   • Duration: around 2.5 years

   • These are your 2014–2015, 2018-style winters. Brutal, drawn-out, no one wants to remember them.

2. Short-term bear markets

   • Average drop: ~36%

   • Duration: 2–3 months

   • These live inside broader bull cycles. They feel like the end of the world in the moment, but structurally they’re just deep resets.

Within the current bull that kicked off in late 2022, we’ve already seen:

• Seven pullbacks in the 20–40% range.

• Five of those hit the “short-term bear” definition almost perfectly: 20%+ drawdowns, lasting 2+ months.

We’re about 40+ days into the current one, right in the window where short-term bears usually do their worst work and start exhausting.

So the million-dollar question is:

Are we in the early phase of a multi-year cyclical bear, or in the messy middle of yet another short-term bear inside a structural bull?

The candles alone won’t answer that. The flows will.

While charts scream pain, capital is doing something very different

If you were in a true multi-year crypto winter forming right now, you’d expect to see:

• Venture money vanish.

• Treasuries de-risking, not adding BTC/ETH.

• Exchanges pulling back, not preparing to go public.

• Stablecoin giants shrinking, not expanding into new credit verticals.

Instead, we’re seeing the opposite.

1. Republic raises $100M to stack ETH on zero-interest terms

Republic isn’t just “buying a little ETH.”

They:

• Secured a $100M zero-interest convertible note.

• Intend to use it to grow their ETH holdings.

• Structured the deal to limit shareholder dilution, while still building a major digital asset position.

Zero-interest, no default risk from missed payments, and a clear intent: “we want more ETH as a treasury asset.”

That is not how people behave if they think we’re at the start of an 84% drawdown.

2. Strategy buys another 8,178 BTC

While retail panics at sub-$90K prints:

• Strategy picked up 8,178 BTC for $835.6M,

• At an average price of roughly $102,171 per BTC.

• They now hold almost 650,000 BTC, the largest corporate treasury by a mile.

Their stock price has been slapped down (from ~$474 to around ~$207), but they’re still playing long-term chess:

• Ride out volatility.

• Accumulate supply that can’t be easily replaced.

• Angle for S&P 500 inclusion on the back of their BTC strategy.

Again: this is not “we think crypto is over.” This is “we think volatility is the cost of owning the future collateral layer.”

3. Tether goes deeper into real-world credit and commodities

Tether could’ve just sat on USDT fees and chilled.

Instead, they’re:

• Expanding a $1.5B trade finance book,

• Funding commodity trades (agricultural goods, oil, etc.)

• Growing a Trade Finance Unit that pushes USDT and their capital base deeper into real-world lending.

• Sitting on 100+ tons of physical gold, plus their tokenized gold product.

That’s an issuer betting that crypto rails + real-world credit is a growth business, not a topped-out fad.

4. Kraken: $800M raise + IPO path at a $20B valuation

If you’ve lived through a real crypto winter, you know:

• In 2018, companies were slashing costs and praying for runway.

• Valuations got nuked, not marked up with fresh nine-figure rounds.

Kraken just did the opposite:

• Raised $800M across two funding rounds.

• Landed a $20B valuation.

• Took $200M from Citadel Securities, as TradFi royalty effectively says: “Yeah, we want this exposure.”

• Filed a confidential S-1 with the SEC, edging toward a U.S. IPO.

You don’t do that if you think the next two years are going to look like 2018 all over again.

So… what kind of “bear” are we looking at?

Price says:

• Technical bear.

• 20%+ drop.

• Fear, weak dip buying, nasty chart.

Flows and corporate behaviour say:

• Capital is still entering the ecosystem at scale.

• Key infrastructure players (exchanges, treasuries, stablecoin issuers) are building and expanding, not retreating.

• Structures like zero-interest notes and multi-hundred-million raises are being deployed into BTC and ETH exposure, not away from it.

Put together, this looks way more like a short-term bear inside a structural bull than the start of a multi-year crypto ice age.

Could it morph into a full cyclical bear? Sure. BTC doesn’t owe anyone kindness.

But if you zoom out, the way big, slow money is behaving does not match the “top of cycle, everyone quietly leaves” pattern we’ve seen in true end-of-cycle bears.

Degen Toolbox: Bear-Market Typing for Grown-Ups

Today’s “tool” is a simple framework you can literally keep on a sticky note:

1. Depth

• <40% from peak: Likely a short-term bear / mid-cycle flush.

• >70–80% from peak: You’re in cyclical bear territory.

2. Duration

• 1–3 months of pain: Short-term bear.

• 2–3 years of slow death: Cyclical.

3. Behaviour

Ask:

• Are top companies raising, building, buying?

• Are regulators tightening or just slowly normalizing?

• Are infra players (exchanges, stablecoins, treasuries) shrinking or expanding?

You don’t need a PhD model. You just need to look at what the adults with real capital are doing.

Right now, that answer is: they’re still here, still wiring, still building.