In 2026, an altcoin rally is unlikely to occur, with most capital expected to flow into established major cryptocurrencies. This view was expressed by Jeff Ko, the chief analyst at CoinEx Research, in an interview with Cointelegraph.
“Retail investors expecting a rising tide to lift all boats will be disappointed. We predict the absence of a traditional altcoin season. Instead, liquidity will be ruthlessly selective, flowing only into cryptocurrency ‘blue chips’ with real adoption,” he stated.
Due to divergent central bank policies, the growth of the global money supply will have a “moderately positive impact” on the digital asset market in the coming year. Overall, Bitcoin’s historical sensitivity to the dynamics of the M2 aggregate “has decreased since the launch of the ETF, and the correlation has diminished,” the expert added.
The base scenario from CoinEx forecasts Bitcoin reaching $180,000 in 2026.
Divergent Forecasts
Historically favourable, the fourth quarter sees Bitcoin ending with a price drop of approximately 20%, marking the second-worst performance ever.
Historically, Q4 has often been one of Bitcoin’s strongest periods.
Some of the biggest moves of past cycles happened late in the year.
But this time, Q4 is red.
Instead of a strong finishing stretch, the quarter has been negative and sits alongside some of Bitcoin’s weakest… https://t.co/08qNqtOf0D pic.twitter.com/z3ecoTetOn
— Milk Road (@MilkRoad) December 22, 2025
“This usually means the market has shed excess risk and weak positions. Thus, it does not guarantee automatic growth in 2026, but historically, cycles ending with a major reset tend to have better conditions for building strength,” noted analysts from Milk Road.
Renowned trader and technical analyst Peter Brandt emphasized that Bitcoin is a unique asset, having experienced “five parabolic advances on a logarithmic scale,” followed by declines of at least 80%.
There has never been anything like Bitcoin, and may not ever be anything like it again
In 15 years $BTC has experienced five parabolic advances on a log scale followed by at least 80% declines (current cycle not done yet) pic.twitter.com/gNEiXrHsnU— Peter Brandt (@PeterLBrandt) December 22, 2025
The current cycle in the leading cryptocurrency is not yet complete, he added. This implies a potential price drop to around $25,000.
Brandt expects the peak of the next bull market no earlier than September 2029.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at approximately $87,600, although the price exceeded $90,000 the previous day.
Experts largely attribute the price drop to expectations of a massive options expiry on digital gold and Ethereum on the Deribit exchange. On December 26, contracts worth over $28.5 billion, representing about half of the open interest on the platform, are set to expire.
Deribit’s Chief Commercial Officer Jean-David Pekino noted that in Bitcoin, $1.2 billion is concentrated in put options at a strike price of $85,000. If sellers exert pressure, the closing of contracts could negatively impact the asset’s spot prices.
According to the manager, traders are mostly rolling over protective positions to early 2026, indicating concerns about the leading cryptocurrency’s trajectory.
Earlier, Saad Ahmed from Gemini explained the reason why an altcoin season has not materialized.