Bitcoin Sinks Below $100K Again — Why Is Sentiment THIS Bad

Bitcoin just broke below $100,000 for the second time in the last few weeks. And sentiment is as bad as it was after the FTX collapse. Except this time, Bitcoin isn't at $16K. So why does this feel like a bear market bottom when the data says otherwise? Why do long-term holders continue to bleed coins into the market? And why does price look dead even as institutions, corporations, and now even central banks are moving in? So the age-old question, have we topped? Today we're breaking down why this cycle doesn't look like any Bitcoin top we've ever seen before, and what makes this one so unusual. Welcome to No Second Best, the show where conviction meets reality, and reality points straight to Bitcoin. I'm your host Hurley, now let's get into it. Bitcoin has dropped down as low as $98,000 today, after weeks of heavy selling pressure. But one thing to note is that even though this is the second time we've dipped below $100K in the last few weeks, we haven't actually closed a single day below it in 188 days. So this level has held for more than half a year. Will today finally be the day we close under it? We'll just have to wait and see. But there's definitely no question that price action has looked weak, and sentiment has gone from bad to brutal. Everyone who expected a massive and euphoric blow-off top in 2025 is wondering if this year has been a bad fever dream. Meanwhile, here's a taste of what's happened in the last couple days. The Czech National Bank became the first major central bank in history to buy Bitcoin directly to an exchange, launching a multi-year pilot to learn custody, key management, tokenized deposits, and AML controls. The test portfolio, valued at around a million dollars, is primarily in Bitcoin, with a USD stablecoin and a tokenized deposit also included, all acquired through an exchange. Also, President Trump signed a funding bill yesterday, officially ending the longest U.S. government shutdown ever. And Square activated Bitcoin payments across 4 million point-of-sale terminals. Also, CashApp now lets users pay in Bitcoin even when using their USD balance, completely normalizing Bitcoin rails under everyday payments. So this should feel super bullish. But the market doesn't feel bullish. And the people don't feel bullish. To get a sense of the terrible sentiment in Bitcoin land, let's go to a clip from Preston Pysh in his Q3 Bitcoin Mastermind podcast with Joe Calasari, American Huddle, and Dr. Jeff Ross. Sentiment. Joe, take it away. No, it's horrible. I was scanning through the cesspool these days of Bitcoin Twitter, and it's like, it's something. It's like, everybody's down, everybody's depressed, everybody's like, this thing sucks, let me get into the yellow rock. I don't remember being this bad, like, in the depths of the bear market. I don't know, am I crazy? I think everybody's expectations have been shattered. I think we're used to the four-year, kind of like that there's this crazy pump that was supposed to happen over the last nine months. Nothing happened. Like, it was just completely sideways for the whole year so far. And I think people are very frustrated with that. I'm frustrated with that. I don't know about you guys, but. Well, you know, the frustration is, it's easy to understand emotionally, because huddling is a hard journey. And so as a human being, you expect to be rewarded for that journey. And like, so far, really, there hasn't been much of a reward. I mean, we're not even up that much in inflation-adjusted terms compared to something like the top of the 2021 cycle. And last time we went below the prior all-time high. So that was kind of a very tough moment. Go back in your mind to post-FTX collapse and Sandbank and Freed. Go back to that place in your mind and just remember how awful the feeling was and, you know, how hard we all got our faces shoved in the dirt. And then we were all expecting, you know, two, three X, and then beyond the prior all-time highs. And we haven't even gotten there. We haven't even gotten to two X, the prior all-time high. And so to me, as a long-time Bitcoiner who has a myopic Bitcoin view, this really doesn't feel like a bull market to me in any meaningful sense. I mean, some people will say it is because there was a big rally off of 15K. And now we're obviously, we've been to 125K and we've been solidly over a hundred for a long time. But as a Bitcoiner, this is not the Bitcoin bull market that I'm used to. And so, you know, I'm a little addicted to the dopamine. I'm antsy. I'm like, let's go. Come on, let's pump this bad boy. So this is our emotional reality right now. People aren't capitulating because they're scared. They're capitulating because they're tired. They endured FTX. They endured regulatory crackdowns. We all expected 2025 to reward that patience. And instead, Bitcoin has underperformed gold, the S&P and the NASDAQ by a wide margin. That disappointment is now showing up in behavior. Fidelity's Chris Cooper asked the most important question. If ETFs are buying and corporations are buying, who's selling into this? His answer is simple and in line with what many others have concluded. It's long-term holders. But not in a panicked dump and not in a euphoric blow off, but in a slow, steady bleed. You see this in the metric. Percent of supply last active in one plus years. Normally, this crashes during euphoria. Older coins flood the market at the absolute top. For this cycle, the decline is gentle, orderly, tax-driven, psychology-driven. People expected a parabolic year and they didn't get one. So they're taking profits and calling it a day. So it's not so much fear as it is fatigue and boredom. The disappointing opportunity cost of missing huge plays like AI tech stocks and gold are weighing Bitcoin bulls down. And honestly, this is where having conviction grounded in truth and a real strategy actually matters. If you're someone managing meaningful capital, whether that's family wealth or a business treasury, you need a plan that works through these quiet, emotionally difficult periods. And that's exactly what we help people do at Swan Private. Long-term allocation, custody design, risk management, and making smart moves when everyone else is exhausted or distracted. So for white glove service and a personalized Bitcoin expert to help you steward generational wealth, visit swan.com slash no second best and chat with a Swan Private rep today. So have we topped? I feel like we've been asking this question since the summer. Well, let's simplify it. There are really two kinds of Bitcoin tops. There's the euphoric blow-off tops like we saw in 2017 and even in April 2021. These saw vertical candles and huge air pockets left in the charts. Short-term holders dominate the top, followed by brutal and near instant 50 to 80% drawdowns. This looks nothing like we've seen in 2025. The second type of top we'll call the second wind tops. We only really saw this in November 2021 for Bitcoin, but some would argue maybe today's market is a repeat of that. These happen when price grinds sideways near highs for months. Long-term and short-term holders are mixed together. The range becomes heavy, but not euphoric. That's the structure we're in. So what does that mean? Well, for starters, this definitely doesn't look like a melt-up top. There's no mania, no blow-off, no vertical push that leaves the chart hollow underneath. And the drawdowns we've seen right now around 25% is tiny compared to what a real top usually brings. If 126K was a classic top, we would have likely already seen a 40, 50 to 60% drawdown. The market's tired, but it doesn't seem broken. Back in early 2022, sentiment collapsed instantly. Unrealized losses spiked, liquidity dried up, and half the industry turned out to be completely over-leveraged and fraudulent. That's what a true top feels like. This? This feels like a long, annoying stalemate. Bulls still defending the range, and bears still taking shots below 100K. To me, this stalemate says the market isn't spiritually dead, just exhausted. People are confused, waiting and watching someone else blink first. Yes, we could break lower before the reversal, but the structure today doesn't scream cycle top to me. It looks much more like a midpoint, the kind of range that usually resolves once macro finally moves. And that's what many people miss. You can't understand this range without looking at the bigger economic cycle. So let's go to Jeff Ross and Joe Calasare, because they break down exactly why this cycle has felt so strange, and why the macro backdrop might be the real key here. And so for whatever reason, this business cycle has refused to take off so far. It's still sitting right around 50 or just sub 50. I still think everything I look at says we are going higher in the next 9 to 12 months. And so if we do get higher, if we start to see a takeoff in the manufacturing sector, and in the US economy as a whole, and global liquidity continues to kind of move up and to the right, I still think our best days are ahead of us. And I definitely think the four-year cycle is dead. And lots of people are going to get fooled by that. I think a lot of people are going to bail in December and think it's over. And then it's going to get fun after that. And they're going to miss it. And they're going to be piling back in several hundred thousand dollars higher. So personally, I'm very optimistic for what's coming in 2026. And I'm the most surprised as anybody, right? I've been saying since early 2025, we're going to peak in the fourth quarter, 475k Bitcoin, blah, blah, blah. Joe was right. I was wrong. So shout out to Joe. Joe said it was going to creep along higher and be about, what did you say, 150 maybe by the end of the year? I think, no, my target all year long has been 130. And everybody's like, super bear, man. You suck. And you're nailing it. The real story is the shattering of the four-year cycle, whether it's business cycle related or having cycle. That thing, we need to cast that into the trash bin of history. We need to know that it can be green dot, green dot, green dot, green dot, like four in a row, right? It can be higher for next year. It can be higher the year after that. I'm very optimistic. I actually think, to your point, the manufacturing, the numbers, the reason ISM is creeping right at 49 or under 50 is because they're waiting for the rates to drop. They want the rates to drop. And then that'll create a recovery. And from there, Bitcoin and everything should do well. I expect a strong year in 2026. I don't know why people are just glued to the calendar, thinking it's Cinderella at the ball and it all comes apart. It doesn't make any sense to me. So this would explain a lot of the frustration in the market. A huge portion of the people in Bitcoin are still thinking in four-year blocks, when the real driver this time is the broader business cycle. Liquidity hasn't turned yet. Manufacturing hasn't turned yet. Rates haven't turned yet. And until those things shift, you're not going to get the kind of expansionary wave that usually powers the strongest part of the Bitcoin bull market. So if you're expecting the classic post-halving low off top, you might be waiting for something that has already broken. But if Jeff and Joe are right, and the macro finally starts to turn in 2026, then a lot of people are going to be panic selling this winter, thinking the cycle is over, only to chase back in several hundred thousand dollars higher. That's why this moment is so strange. You've got brutal sentiment, a tired market, and long-term holders bleeding coins. Right as fundamentals are actually getting stronger and stronger. I mean, as we mentioned earlier, we now have a major central bank buying Bitcoin for the first time ever. Not for speculation, for training. For custody drills. For key management practice. That's the early architecture of a sovereign Bitcoin world. We have Bitcoin rails now active across 4 million square terminals. You can pay with Bitcoin using your USD balance. I really believe the majority of people in the world won't adopt Bitcoin. They'll just start using the network without even thinking about it. On top of this, we have corporations continuing to accumulate. We have ETFs continuing to absorb supply. And we have treasury companies and institutions treating Bitcoin exactly like the long-term reserve asset that they believe it is. Meanwhile, the price is sitting just under 100k. And the market feels miserable. That's not a bear market. That's an opportunity wrapped in disappointment. So what does this mean for you? It means we're in the uncomfortable middle. The part of every Bitcoin cycle where emotions peak long before price does. It means you need to be thinking in scenarios, not predictions. And it means the quieter Bitcoin gets, the more powerful the next move tends to be. So let me leave you with this. Extreme fear is usually a sentiment found at bottoms, not near all-time highs. And when fear spikes while fundamentals strengthen, that's a setup you don't see very often. So what do you think happens next? Do we test 95k? Or do we chop sideways until macro finally turns and sends us into the next expansion? Drop your thoughts in the comments. Hit the like button. Share it with someone who's running out of patience. And make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss the next episode. Thanks for watching. And remember, there is no second best money.