How long do bitcoin bear markets last? What the last two took
Bitcoin's last two full bear markets each fell for about a year. In 2018 the fall from the high to the lowest close took 364 days. In 2022 it took 378 days.
Getting back to the old high took much longer: 1,074 days after the 2017 high, and 847 days after the 2021 high. Two bear markets is a small record, so read these as what happened, not as a rule.
Two ways to measure a bear market
People mean two different things by “how long”:
- High to low: how long the price kept falling.
- High back to high: how long until someone who bought at the top was even again.
Take 2022. Bitcoin's highest close was on 8 November 2021. Its lowest close came on 21 November 2022, 378 days later. It first closed back at the old high on 4 March 2024, 847 days after the high. So the fall lasted about a year, but the whole round trip took more than two.
Which falls count
In stocks, a fall of 20% or more is the usual rule of thumb for a bear market. By that rule bitcoin has had ten since 2017. Six of them were 34% or smaller, and each of those got back to its high within eight months (the full list). When people talk about bitcoin bear markets, they usually mean the long, deep ones: 2018 and 2022. The table adds the 2021 fall and the current one, the two others that went past 50%.
“Depth” is how far the price fell from the high. The three day columns count from the high to the lowest close, from the lowest close back to the old high, and the whole way from high back to high.
| High | Lowest close | Depth | Days high to low | Days low back to high | Days high back to high |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 2017 | Dec 2018 | −83% | 364 | 710 | 1,074 |
| Apr 2021 | Jul 2021 | −53% | 98 | 91 | 189 |
| Nov 2021 | Nov 2022 | −77% | 378 | 469 | 847 |
| Oct 2025 | Jun 2026* | −53% | 267 | not yet | not yet |
* The lowest close so far. Nobody knows yet whether it was the bottom.
The two deep bear markets spent longer climbing back than falling. In 2018 the climb from the low took almost twice as long as the fall.
Bear markets have rallies that fail
On the way down, bitcoin did not fall in a straight line. A rise of 20% or more that later gives way to a new low is often called a relief rally, or a bear-market rally.
- 2018: four relief rallies. The largest was a 66% rise, from 5 February to 4 March 2018. Each time, the price later fell to a new low.
- 2022: two relief rallies: 35% (22 January to 29 March) and 29% (18 June to 13 August). Both gave way to lower lows.
The lesson for a reader is simple: a big rise in the middle of a fall does not, by itself, mean the fall is over. In 2018 a 66% rise came before the price fell to a new low.
Most of the time was spent more than halfway down
From the December 2017 high until bitcoin got back to it, the price closed at least 50% below that high on 749 of the 1,075 days, about 70%. In the 2021–24 round trip it was 533 of 848 days, about 63%. A long bear market is not one bad week. It is years of holding something worth half or less of what it was.
The four-year rhythm
The highs before the two deep bear markets came 1,423 days apart (December 2017 to November 2021). The next high, October 2025, came 1,428 days after that. The two lows were 1,437 days apart. Each time, the climb from a low to the next high took about 1,050 to 1,060 days.
Many people link this rhythm to the halving, the cut in new bitcoin supply that happens about every four years. Two complete cycles are too few to test that, or to count on the rhythm repeating.
Where the current fall stands (9 October 2026)
- Highest close: $124,659 on 6 October 2025, 368 days before 9 October 2026.
- Lowest close since then: $58,625 on 30 June 2026, 53% below the high and 267 days after it.
- On the way down there was one relief rally: 31%, from 5 February to 10 May 2026, before the June low.
- Close on 9 October 2026: $82,636. That is 41% above the June low and 34% below the high.
- So far this fall has spent 14 days at least 50% below its high, against 749 days in 2018–20 and 533 days in 2021–24.
The two earlier lows came 364 and 378 days after their highs, about where the calendar is now. This fall's lowest close so far came sooner, and it was shallower. The 41% rise since June does not settle it either: in 2018 a 66% rise came before a new low. The record can't tell us whether June was the bottom. Nobody knows that yet.
How we measured it
- Prices: Binance's BTC/USDT pair (USDT is a stablecoin designed to track the US dollar), one closing price per day (UTC), 17 August 2017 to 9 October 2026: 3,341 days. Bitcoin's earlier history, including the 2014 bear market, is not in this data. Prices are not adjusted for inflation.
- High is the highest close so far. Lowest close is the lowest close before the price got back to that high. Back to high is the first day it closed at or above the high again.
- A relief rally is a rise of 20% or more in the closing price from a low, followed later by a close below that low, before the bear market's lowest close.
- Daily closes, not prices during the day. Measured from the highest to the lowest price traded, each fall was at least as deep as shown here.
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