Every cycle has cut the price by at least half. Here is the record, with the caveats that come with it.
Bitcoin's past bear markets took the price down by about 93% in 2011, 85% in 2015, 84% in 2018 and at least 73% in 2022. The latest one, from about US$126,000 in October 2025 to a low near US$60,000, was about 52%. Recoveries to the old high have taken around three years.
Not financial advice.
Every bitcoin bear market so far has taken the price down by more than half, and most have taken it down by about 80%. The drops have been getting a little shallower each time, but no cycle has been gentle. Here are the four big ones, plus the one that ended this year, measured from the cycle peak to the lowest point that followed.
| Cycle | Peak (US$) | Low (US$) | Drop |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | about 30 (June 2011) | about 2 (November 2011) | about 93% |
| 2013 to 2015 | about 1,130 (November 2013) | about 170 (January 2015) | about 85% |
| 2017 to 2018 | about 19,800 (December 2017) | about 3,100 (December 2018) | about 84% |
| 2021 to 2022 | about 67,600 (November 2021) | under 20,000 (June 2022, lower again after FTX) | 73% by mid-2022 |
| 2025 to 2026 | about 126,000 (October 2025) | near 60,000 (2026) | about 52% |
The older figures come from the price history collected on Wikipedia's cryptocurrency bubble page and a Cointelegraph history of bitcoin crashes. The two sources round differently: Cointelegraph puts the 2013 to 2015 fall at 83% and the 2018 fall at 84%, and the exact 2011 figure depends on which exchange you count, since the early market was tiny. Treat every number above as "about", not as a precise measurement.
Depth is only half of it. The other half is time. By Cointelegraph's count, bitcoin took about 37 months to get back to its November 2013 high and about 36 months to get back above its December 2017 high. Three years is a long time to look at a number that is lower than what you paid.
The slide itself, from peak to bottom, has usually run about a year. Glassnode's 2022 review found that past bear markets took between 260 and 410 days to reach their lows, and that bitcoin was 73.3% below its November 2021 high by mid-2022, which it called "firmly within historical norms". Prices then fell further in November 2022, when FTX collapsed and bitcoin hit its lowest level in two years.
So a fair summary of history is this: roughly a year of falling, then a year or two of going nowhere, then a recovery. That shape is what people mean when they talk about the four-year cycle, which our guide to the crypto cycle covers in more detail.
Bitcoin peaked at about US$126,000 in October 2025. CoinDesk wrote on September 21 that the bear-market low may have been set near US$60,000 in recent months. From US$126,000 to US$60,000 is a drop of about 52%, far milder than the 73% to 93% range of earlier cycles.
Not everyone dates or measures it the same way. In May, Decrypt reported bitcoin at about US$80,500, roughly 36% under its high, and quoted analysts arguing that ETF buying and companies holding bitcoin in their treasuries had cushioned this cycle. That was before the summer low. Since then the price has climbed back: CoinDesk had it near US$84,000 on September 29, up about 7% for September after a 25% gain in August. A day earlier, CoinDesk noted it was still more than US$20,000 above its summer low, even as traders paid to hold bets on further falls.
Whether US$60,000 was the bottom is not something anyone can know yet. It is only a bottom if nothing lower comes after it, and past cycles have had false floors.
The pattern is easy to see in the table: 93%, then 85%, then 84%, then 73% by mid-2022, then about 52%. A bigger, more liquid market with long-term holders, ETFs and public companies tends to move less violently than a small one run by early enthusiasts. That is a reasonable story.
It is still a story built on five data points. Five is not a sample you can bet a house on. Bitcoin can still fall 70% in a year where the macro picture turns against it; a US 10-year Treasury yield above 5.2%, which CoinDesk says is weighing on bitcoin right now, are exactly the kind of thing that can do it. Anyone who plans around the idea that the next bear will be shallower is taking a risk, not observing a law.
For a Canadian, there is one more wrinkle. These figures are in US dollars. In Canadian dollars the percentages come out a little different, because the loonie moves against the US dollar at the same time. The shape is the same.
Two things, mostly. First, if you hold bitcoin through a full cycle, you should expect to watch at least half of it disappear on paper at some point, and possibly much more. If that would push you to sell at the bottom, the amount is too big for you. Second, the people who came out ahead historically were rarely the ones who guessed the exact top or bottom. They were the ones who had decided in advance what they would do, and then did it.
That second point is the whole reason written rules exist. A rule does not know the future. It just stops you from making the decision at the worst possible moment, which in a bear market is most moments.
Fonte runs that kind of written rule inside a vault that is your own smart account on Base. After a cycle top it waits in USDC lent on Aave, currently paying 3.8% a year at a variable rate, and it buys a BTC and ETH basket about a year after the top. In our backtest over three cycles, the worst drawdown was 59% to 69%, against 88% for simply holding half bitcoin and half ether. That is backtested, not a promise, and a 60% fall is still a 60% fall. Fonte never holds your money and you can withdraw any time. See how a Fonte vault works.
The 2011 crash, when bitcoin fell from about US$30 in June to about US$2 by November, a drop of roughly 93%. The market was tiny then, so a few trades moved the price a lot.
The slide from peak to bottom has usually taken about 260 to 410 days, according to Glassnode. Getting back to the old high took about three years after the 2013 and 2017 peaks.
From about US$126,000 in October 2025 to a low near US$60,000 in 2026, based on CoinDesk reporting, which is a drop of about 52%. Nobody can confirm yet that this was the final low.
Drops have shrunk each cycle, from about 93% to about 52%, but that is five data points. A shallower next bear is possible, not certain, so plan for a deep fall anyway.
Disclaimer: This article is general information, not financial, investment, legal or tax advice. Crypto assets are volatile and you can lose money, including your entire deposit. Figures quoted from third parties are as reported by those sources on the date shown and can change. Smart contracts can contain flaws.