Crypto-focused asset manager Grayscale said that Bitcoin’s price may have bottomed earlier than the traditional four-year cycle, which would imply a cycle low in September or October. 

Grayscale’s head of research, Zach Pandl, argued that Bitcoin (BTC) has “grown up” as an asset and is increasingly driven by macroeconomic factors. 

“If the Fed forgoes rate hikes and economic growth holds up well, Bitcoin’s price may already have bottomed,” Pandl wrote in a Wednesday report.

Earlier in July, crypto brokerage K33 pointed to more than 50% of the Bitcoin supply being held at a loss as another signal of an imminent market bottom, arguing that Bitcoin’s price has historically bottomed weeks after more than half of the supply fell underwater in prior cycles.

In a June interview, Swan Bitcoin CEO Cory Klippsten told Cointelegraph that the record holdings of long-term investors, which reached an all-time high of 14.7 million Bitcoin, are another signal of an imminent Bitcoin bottom.

Bitcoin price cycles that correspond to shifts in macro backdrops. Source: Grayscale

Fed interest rate expectations, macro factors in the “driver’s seat”

Grayscale’s Pandl said that macro factors, such as the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decisions, are in the “driver’s seat” for Bitcoin price, which could “bottom when these macro factors turn around.”

The Fed’s next interest rate decision is due on July 29. Market participants are pricing in a 66% chance that the Fed will hold interest rates unchanged, down from 88% a week ago, according to the CME Group’s Fedwatch tool.

Target rate probabilities for the Fed’s July 29 meeting. Source: CMEGroup

Pandl argued that prior Bitcoin bear markets have corresponded with slowing economic growth and rising real interest rates.

Related: Hobby-level miner bags $200K solo BTC block with budget Bitaxe rig

However, regulatory uncertainty may still limit Bitcoin’s price action. In a June 26 report, Pandl said that if the CLARITY Act doesn’t pass this year, Strategy and other treasury companies may continue to further “deleverage,” causing Bitcoin to “fall moderately further.”

Other analysts are expecting a later bottom, such as Lebit Mining Pool founder Jiang Zhuoer, who predicted that Bitcoin would only bottom between October and December 2026, or about six months after Strategy’s Multiple to Net Asset Value (mNAV) found its cycle low.  

Magazine: Bitcoin nearing late stages of bear market: Jamie Coutts, Real Vision