When the monetary revaluation calculation becomes the enemy: why $200,000 was just an illusion?

In January 2025, the crypto market was swept by a collective euphoria. Analysts, fund managers, and institutional operators agreed on a single narrative: Bitcoin would reach $200,000. Tom Lee, Wall Street’s optimism barometer, predicted $250,000. Cathie Wood spoke of an even wider valuation space. Yet, at the end of the year, Bitcoin is around $90.81K, with market sentiment plunged to extreme fear levels (Fear & Greed Index at 16 points). What went wrong? The true culprit is not wrong predictions but a structural change so profound that the old market language can no longer describe it.

The institutional narrative that seduced the market

The approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs by the SEC in 2024 was the main catalyst. BlackRock’s IBIT fund became one of the most successful debut products in the 35-year history of ETFs. Traditional financial institutions finally gained regulated tools to accumulate Bitcoin.

The logic seemed unassailable: the 2024 halving reduces supply, mainstream capital flows via ETFs, and prices rise unstoppable. This was the dominant consensus, the leitmotif running through every investment thesis presentation from January to March 2025.

But the real market told a different story. Although Bitcoin hit new all-time highs of $122,000 in July, the path was not a straight ascent. Every attempt to push higher encountered increasing volatility and repeated corrections. The price remained trapped in a high range, unable to definitively break through the promised $200,000.

The divorce between the miner cycle and ETF psychology

Here lies the core of the issue. The traditional halving operated on a simple mechanic: fewer new coins in circulation meant less selling pressure from miners, thus higher prices. This four-year cycle had dominated the crypto market for over a decade.

In 2025, this model became irrelevant.

After the 2024 halving, daily Bitcoin issuance dropped to about 450 units (roughly $40 million at the time). But ETF weekly flows regularly exceed $1-3 billion. Institutions accumulated about 944,330 Bitcoin during the year, while miners produced only 127,622: institutional volume is 7.4 times the new supply.

This reversal is a seismic shift. The market is no longer driven by miner economics but by the psychology of the cost basis of fund managers. The average cost for holders of US spot ETFs is around $84,000. This number, not the next halving, has become the main anchor for Bitcoin’s price.

The revolution of monetary revaluation calculation in Fed policy

A crucial element that early predictors underestimated is the role of the Federal Reserve and global liquidity. By mid-2024, the market confidently expected the Fed to start a rate-cut cycle around year-end. This expectation fueled Bitcoin’s initial rally.

However, more resilient-than-expected economic data and cautious Fed officials’ statements led to a radical reassessment. US employment slowed but not enough to justify a strongly expansionary monetary policy. The expected rate cuts were postponed, then delayed again.

This is not a technical detail but a transformation of the entire monetary revaluation calculation of the market. When rates stay high, the present value of future cash flows of risky assets compresses. Bitcoin, being the most volatile among risk assets, was hit first. Investors began recalculating how much they are willing to pay for a store of value in a sustained high-rate environment.

The new biennial cycle: from mechanical selling to spreadsheet decisions

If the miner cycle was four-year, the new institutional cycle appears biennial. The pressure on professional fund managers’ year-end performance is becoming the main price driver.

Managers evaluate their performance over 1-2 year horizons, with fees and bonuses settled on December 31. This creates a powerful behavioral anchor: as the year-end approaches and managers lack enough “cushion” of profits/losses, they tend to sell riskier positions to protect their track record.

The emerging pattern will be predictable: the first year of accumulation and rise (new capital flows in, price precedes the cost basis); the second year of distribution and reset (performance pressure leads to profit-taking, price corrects and establishes a new higher cost base). Bitcoin will no longer oscillate around the halving date but around the calendar cycles of mutual funds.

The silent redistribution of positions

On-chain data at the end of 2025 tell a story of structural reorganization. The market is not retreating entirely; rather, there is a rapid redistribution of positions from emotional and short-term players to those with greater patience and risk tolerance.

Medium-sized whales (10-1,000 BTC) have been net sellers in recent weeks—old profits are being crystallized. Super whales (over 10,000 BTC) are instead buying against the trend during dips, with some long-term strategic entities strengthening their positions.

In retail, divergence is even more pronounced: less experienced users liquidate in panic, while more sophisticated and long-term retail investors seize the opportunity. Selling pressure comes from the “weak,” while positions concentrate in the hands of the “strong.”

Technical signals: the critical crossroads of $92,000

From a technical standpoint, Bitcoin is in a critical position. Analysts converge on a consensus: the $92,000 level is a crucial bottleneck. Either Bitcoin breaks upward from this point, dragging the entire crypto market, or it falls to test new lows.

Charts show an ascending wedge forming, a pattern historically preceding bearish movements. A breakdown could lead Bitcoin to retest November’s low of $80,540, with further declines potentially down to the annual minimum of around $74,500.

In the derivatives market, extreme positioning (many puts at $85,000 and calls at $200,000) suggests a deeply divided market. Uncertainty is not casual; it reflects a transforming market structure.

The shadow of AI: when one narrative compresses another

In 2025, Bitcoin is not only competing with itself but with an even more powerful narrative force: artificial intelligence. AI has become the central force in the valuation of all global risky assets, with its volatility directly influencing the risk budget available for cryptocurrencies.

The impact is even deeper at the cognitive resource level. The overarching narrative of AI has directly compressed the crypto industry’s narrative space. Even when on-chain data is healthy and the developer ecosystem active, the crypto sector struggles to regain a valuation premium once taken for granted.

When the AI bubble enters a correction phase—and every bubble eventually does—the fate of the crypto market could change radically. AI will return liquidity, risk appetite, and resources to alternative assets. Bitcoin could suddenly find itself under a different light.

The new paradigm: monitoring tides, not the calendar

Behind the collective failure of early 2025 predictions lies a structural lesson: Bitcoin’s market has shifted from a miner economy to a fund manager spreadsheet economy. The average base cost of spot ETFs (currently around $84,000) has replaced the halving as the main price anchor. The key to predicting Bitcoin is no longer calculating when the next supply reduction will occur but monitoring the tides of global liquidity and the monetary revaluation calculus of central banks.

When the Fed talks about rates, when global liquidity contracts or expands, when fund managers approach year-end and start doing their accounting—these are the signals that now move Bitcoin’s price. It is no less scientific, but it is different. And anyone still preaching according to the old model will be preaching to a reality that no longer exists.

2025 was not Bitcoin’s failure; it was a failure of a way of thinking.