It’s foolish to pretend Bitcoin’s story doesn’t include $79k this year

Bitcoin is slipping again, and the mood in the market has changed. Traders who were celebrating six-figure prices just weeks ago are suddenly watching key levels evaporate.

The move below $106,400 was the first real warning sign, the collapse through $99,000 confirmed that the market is no longer treating those supports as serious of interest.

Now the charts are pointing towards the lower limits of the same channels of the ETF era that have driven the entire structure of Bitcoin since January 2024.

I’ve been following these horizontal channels since the day the ETFs launched. They have acted as remarkably accurate markers of support and resistance, a kind of real-time heat map of where liquidity is concentrated.

Each colored band represents a price range where Bitcoin has spent time consolidating, indicating that leverage has built up there and market participants have anchored their decisions at those levels. Breaking through a channel requires significant pressure, whether it’s buyers outnumbering sellers or vice versa.

This pressure is clearly coming from the sales side now.

A strange cycle from the start

This cycle never fits the usual pattern. Historically, Bitcoin has never reached a new all-time high so close to an impending halving.

Yet at the beginning of 2024, Bitcoin broke the old $69,000 months before the half even arrived. It was the first breakthrough in Bitcoin history, setting the tone for the year.

When we reached October of this year, the price had risen to $126,000. Based on the timing of the previous cycle and the behavior around the middle of the dates, I called the top.

Yes that the call was correctwe are now in the first chapters of the bear market.

Cycle timing usually explains these transitions, although the ETF era complicates matters. Issuance is still declining, but the dominant force now appears to be liquidity.

When billions of dollars can enter or leave the market in a single day through regulated vehicles, the market reacts very differently to the old retail-led structure.

Even with these changes, the channels drawn from the price behavior of the era of ETFs have held with a surprising consistency.

The Breakdown, Level by Level

Bitcoin has now fallen through two of the most important bands. U $106,400 support the level had acted as an upper spine for months, and the $99,000 level was built through heavy trading activity during June.

Losing both areas in one extended move shows how quickly institutional liquidity can be drawn. The buyers who defended these areas before the year no longer intervened.

Now, the price is moving towards the bottom of the orange channel, which is around $93,000. This region had a solid engagement earlier in the trend, so it has a chance to slow down the decline, although it is not a guaranteed rebound zone.

If that fails, the next major region is the purple channel. Its lower limit is around $85,000.

What worries me here is the lack of previous price action. Bitcoin moved out of this band quickly the last time it happened, which means that the market never had time to build a strong position here.

Channels with little historical consolidation often offer weak support because there is not much leverage anchored at those levels. Either the top of the purple channel becomes a point where buyers draw a line, or price slips directly through it, which opens the path to the green channel.

The green band is around $79,000 at its bottom, and this is a more substantial region. Bitcoin spent time consolidating in this area during the first legs of the cycle, so if we get there, the reactions should be stronger.

It would not be surprising to see buyers re-emerge here, especially if sentiment stabilizes around the idea that prices below $80,000 are an opportunity.

Below, we enter the deep structural supports, the red and blue channels that were formed for months of trading in 2024. These represent $49,000 to $56,000, an area that Bitcoin defended repeatedly before the race towards six figures began.

Hitting those levels this year would be an extremely heavy correction and more in line with a classic cycle bottom, which usually falls further into the multi-year pattern, typically around 2026 or 2027.

The liquidity problem

There is no escaping the importance of liquidity here. U the second largest ETF exit on record hit the market yesterday.

Risk appetite is gone, and institutions that helped push Bitcoin to new highs are reducing exposure. In this kind of environment, claiming and keeping $100,000 becomes difficult.

If the flows continue, there is a realistic chance that Bitcoin will continue to move through the lower channels that I have outlined. This does not require a collapse in the foundations.

It just requires a persistent sense of risk off and a constant shift towards cash and short-term assets. When liquidity dries up, Bitcoin trades as a leveraged proxy for macro conditions.

So how low can it go?

Based on the channel structure and current flow environment:

• $93,000 is the next logical proof.
• $85,000 come into play if the orange support fails.
• $79,000 it is the most realistic deeper goal and a level that could hold even in a strong correction.
• $49,000 to $56,000 it lies well below as the last support of the cycle, most likely a 2026-27 story, unless liquidity deteriorates dramatically.

It is tempting to think that six figures is now the basis of Bitcoin and that any drop in the eighties or seventies would be irrational. The structure says otherwise.

The era of ETFs created clear regions of support and resistance, and Bitcoin is now falling for them in the same way that it rose for them along the way. Until liquidity returns, lower channels remain in play.