Over the past few weeks I’ve seen a lot of commentary, especially on CT, “the cycle is over”, “alt season dead”, “bear market incoming”. If you listen to retail sentiment, you’d believe the top is in. And yet, from the structural or cycle view, the bullish argument remains very much alive.
Here are three facts worth considering right now:
- The Crypto Fear and Greed Index, which aggregates volatility, momentum, social media, dominance, and search-trends, is currently showing extreme fear (27) in crypto.
- On October 10/11 2025 (depending where you are on this blue marble) the crypto market endured what’s being called the largest single-day derivative, wipe-out in history. Over US$19 billion in liquidations, about 1.6 million traders closed out. Never even knew there were that many active traders, seems retail are ghosting atm and bots rule all tokens.
- But despite this massive de-leveraging event, analysts at Galaxy Digital (Alex Thorn) say the structural bull market remains intact, thanks to tailwinds such as AI capex, tokenisation and stable-coin growth.
So we have, sentiment deeply bearish (fear), a huge shock event (liquidations and leverage unwound), and structural tailwinds still in place. Historically, when the crowd is overly bearish and structural momentum remains, the odds of the next leg up increase.
Why many voices are still so bearish
Why do we hear nearly 8 in 10 traders or analysts calling for a bear market? A few reasons:
1. Confirmation bias & narrative‐seeking
We humans (and our AI tools) look for evidence that reinforces our hunches, not for what challenges them.
With so many people positioned for a bear, their scan of charts, indicators, headlines will emphasise “risk”, “crash”, “alt-dead”. They’ll see the October 10 liquidation and say “wtf, top is now”. But they may under-weight the facts that (a) the drop was leverage-led not fundamental breakdown, (b) structural flows (i.e., institutional interest) remain. I mean just this week Cobie sold Echo to Coinbase for $375m and his Up Only Podcast for $25m, hardly bear market moves.
The irony is the very tools meant to give clarity (on-chain analytics, social-sentiment AI, etc) can amplify bias if you feed them the wrong inputs or interpret outputs through the lens of what you already believe.
2. Leverage wash-out looks like a breakdown
When $19 billion + gets liquidated and the market dumps 10–70% % in hours, it feels like a crash. Many interpret “liquidation event” = “bear market begins”. But as analysts pointed out, this one was triggered by thin liquidity + heavy leverage + macro shock (US-China trade tensions) more than underlying demand collapse.
Hence many investors extrapolate that price fall means cycle top. But that may be a false signal.
3. The alt-season question
One of the most common bear-case arguments is “Okay, maybe BTC holds up, but alt season is done for this cycle”. And lets be real for a moment, for altcoins, the pain has been sharper and liquidity thinner.
So even if BTC is structurally bullish, many feel the broader “everything pumps” alt-season thesis has been invalidated reinforcing bearish commentary.
Why the bull scenario is still very compelling
Given the bearish noise, here’s why I lean toward the thesis that we’re still within a bull structure, meaning a massive rally / alt-season is still plausible before a full-scale bear phase hits.
Tailwinds intact
- As noted, Galaxy Digital’s research flags AI capex, tokenisation, and stable-coin growth as structural drivers for crypto.
- Additionally, the narrative of AI + crypto is gathering weight: infrastructure, compute, decentralisation of AI models, etc. Bloody Ocean and Fetch aside, the AI play is still on.
These aren’t “funny money” narratives, they map to real technological or geopolitical themes.
Sentiment extreme = asymmetric upside
When the fear-greed index is in extreme fear, typical historical logic says “buyers may begin to appear, because the crowd is all out of bullish conviction”. If you buy when everyone else is scared, your upside is larger. Obviously not a guarantee, but odds shift. Every time I’ve been through a proper alt season its been right after I was crapping myself slightly, because I started to question my own thoughts, and at least considered, maybe Im wrong, or maybe its different this time.
Given sentiment is so skewed to bearish, the “if a bounce happens” scenario is less crowded, and that’s helpful for upside. I reckon that makes sense.
Liquidation event reset the landscape
Massive leverage flushes often clean house. The October 10 event purged a lot of short-term speculative froth, clearing the path for the next move. Analysts see this as “bad news but not cycle-ending news”.
In other words, the crash may have set the stage for the next leg up rather than signaled the end of the bull.
Cycle and structure works despite noise
If you adopt a cycle-framework, for example if you look at the four-year rhythm of Bitcoin via halvings, you’ll note the current build-up suggests the bull phase isn’t obviously over yet.
Even if many believe “alt season is dead”, the data suggests, once BTC enters its next major leg, alt-season may happen after a period of consolidation and accumulation. That suggests a path, well at least to me of accumulation, then acceleration (BTC) into, alt-rotation.
Why the “alt-season before bear market” scenario deserves serious consideration
Let’s walk through one plausible narrative:
Accumulation Phase
After the leverage wash-out, major players quietly build positions (BTC, ETH, selected alts). Liquidity returns.
Up-leg / breakout
BTC breaks higher, perhaps driven by AI or narrative flows and institutional adoption. This triggers broader market confidence.
Alt-season rotation
Once the big boys (BTC/ETH) have run, capital rotates into smaller-cap altcoins seeking higher returns. Historically this happens before the broad bear market phase. And it aint happened yet.
Cycle top
Sentiment flips from fear to greed to euphoria, also hasn’t happened yet. Leverage builds, excess froth emerges, at that point the bear case becomes dominant.
Bear & reset
The big correction comes, cycle resets, we start accumulation for next time.
If we are actually somewhere between stages 1–2, then alt-season could still be ahead, not behind. And the fact that so many are bearish may be a contrarian indicator otherwise known as the (Contrary Cramer Indicator).
The elephant in the room, What about AI tools & confirmation bias?
We live in a world of unprecedented access to data, AI-powered sentiment tools, on-chain analytics, social-media streams. We might assume that means we should have less bias. But the opposite often happens and we use the tools to bolster what we already believe.
AI sentiment-models can process thousands of tweets, Reddit threads, funding-rate shifts, whale flows, etc. But if your prompt or frame is “look for signs of top”, you’ll highlight the bearish signals.
Social media itself is subject to echo-chambers, bots, crowd psychology. AI models may misinterpret hype or fear as “truth”. (Deep learning academic work shows large language models used for crypto sentiment still struggle with bias.)
The narrative drives the filter, If you feel the cycle is ending, you’ll select the liquidation-event, the alt-failures, the tweet “market top”. If you feel the bull will continue, you’ll emphasise tailwinds, institutional flows, and of course cycle timing.
So the access to AI tools doesn’t automatically give clarity, it gives more data and more potential to self-select.
Pragmatically, use the tools to challenge your bias, not confirm it. Ask “What evidence supports the opposite of what I believe?” rather than “Find me reasons I’m right.”
Skeptics’ objections, and how I see them
It wouldn’t be a balanced article without acknowledging the bear case.
“Liquidity drying up / macro risk high”
True, macro risk (rates, bank stress, geopolitics) is real. And if liquidity tightens, crypto suffers. But that is valid for both bear and delayed bull scenarios. The fact that structural flows remain is the counter-weight.
“Alt season already failed”
Yes, altcoins have lagged and suffered heavier pain. But that doesn’t mean they can’t have a second coming. If BTC leads and then rotation happens, we could still see a meaningful alt move.
“Cycle top must be near”
Cycles do top, eventually. But timing them precisely is near-impossible. If we assume “top is now” we may miss a large portion of upside before inevitable decline and 4 more years of absolute agony.
My takeaway, “odds” and positioning
If I were to boil it down, the odds of a meaningful bull run and alt-season before full bear market are meaningfully higher than many believe. That doesn’t mean the market will immediately explode tomorrow. It means the risk-reward skews favour bullish upside more than bears realise in my opinion.
So how might you position?
Keep conviction capital in the high-probability scenario (bull tailwinds + low sentiment) but size carefully because risk remains.
Use tools (AI sentiment, on-chain flows, funding rates) to cross-check rather than to justify your bias.
Monitor for signs of rotation, if BTC runs strongly then alts begin to wake, that would be a key trigger.
Stay alert for when sentiment flips to euphoria-driven. That will mark the high-risk turn.
Avoid thinking “alt scheme is dead forever”. Instead treat the current phase as possibly pre-rotation rather than post-rotation.
TL;DR
We have a weird paradox, access to AI and data has never been greater, yet we still see a huge divergence of views in crypto. Why? Because most of us (and our tools) are still hunting for confirmation of what we feel, not what the data may suggest. And in markets shaped by psychology, liquidity and leverage, how we feel matters a lot.
Today’s extreme fear, and the massive recent liquidation event and still-intact structural drivers create an unusual set-up. The crowd thinks it’s over. The tailwinds suggest it may just be gearing up.
Don’t dismiss a bull leg or alt-season just because you expect a bear. The odds might be better than you realise.
