Analysis: Bitcoin's bull run validated, yet $90K zone poses profit-taking challenge
Analysis of Bitcoin price action reveals onchain indicators mirroring patterns that validated the previous two bull cycles.
Bitcoin (BTC) encounters what market observers call its "next real test" around the $90,000 threshold as market participants progressively move back into unrealized gains territory.
Key points:
- According to CryptoQuant predictions, those taking profits on Bitcoin could create resistance for BTC price advancement at the $90,000 level.
- Analysts have declared the commencement of the subsequent bull market based on onchain indicators, which include the asset's price recapturing its 365-day moving average positioned at $80,500.
- Ki Young Ju, chief executive of CryptoQuant, anticipates that future market cycle peaks and troughs will demonstrate less severity due to institutional ownership trends.
BTC price may experience "natural pause" at $90,000 due to profit-taking activity
Within its most recent weekly assessment published on Tuesday, the onchain analytics service CryptoQuant issued a warning that the vicinity of $90,000 would introduce heightened probabilities of profit-taking behavior if the price manages to reach that level.
The realized price for Bitcoin traders — representing the mean acquisition cost of BTC that most recently transferred onchain during the one to three month window — presently rests at $64,300. Information from CryptoQuant illustrates both upper and lower boundaries surrounding this figure, which indicate profit or loss thresholds for this particular segment of the supply. The profit-taking "upper band" is positioned at $90,300, representing a 40% premium above the realized price level.
The upper band coincides with the $88K–$90K on-chain supply cluster, making it the next resistance to clear. Historically, as price approaches the upper band, trader profit margins stretch and selling can intensify — a natural pause point within an uptrend, not a reversal.
CryptoQuant analysts
The assessment characterizes the trajectory from the present spot price level at $86,000 toward the profit-taking region as "largely clear" while observing no indication of a return to bear-market territory.
"The bull market is confirmed. Technicals, valuation and on-chain data now point the same way — up," the report stated, reiterating an earlier declaration made by CryptoQuant's CEO Ki Young Ju.
Through an X post published this week, Ki expressed his view that upcoming Bitcoin price cycles will exhibit less dramatic characteristics compared to historical ones, attributing this shift to the transition from retail-dominated to institutional-dominated BTC ownership structures.
Today, a much larger market and growing institutional ownership are dampening both extremes. The same forces that limit the upside also soften the downside.
Ki Young Ju, CryptoQuant CEO
Bitcoin profitability stabilizes in 2026
Ki observed that throughout the 2026 bear market period, Bitcoin's market value to realized value (MVRV) ratio never declined beneath its neutral breakeven threshold of 1 at any juncture, indicating that the wider investor population maintained aggregate profitability throughout the entire period — representing a stark departure from previous macro downward trends.
According to Cointelegraph's reporting, MVRV has recently moved above its 365-day moving average — a development that historically marked the conclusion of both the 2018 and 2022 bear market cycles.
Fresh capital flowing into Bitcoin continues to register remarkably elevated levels throughout this month. According to data compiled by Farside Investors, the UK-based investment firm, the US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded net inflows totaling $1.7 billion during just the initial two trading days of the week. The Monday figure of $999 million represented the highest single-day accumulation since October 2025.
