Glossary / Markets & investing
Bull market
- Definition
- A bull market in bitcoin is a sustained stretch of rising prices, and it is a label the market only awards in hindsight, usually after the easy part is over.
Bitcoin has run four of them since 2011, and the first three each ended in a drawdown of more than 70 percent. The most recent peaked above 126,000 dollars on October 6, 2025, about eighteen months after the April 2024 halving. Spotting a bull market matters less than deciding in advance what you will do inside one.
How it works
Rising prices in bitcoin are usually a story about new demand meeting an issuance schedule that cannot respond.
The supply side is fixed by code. The halving on April 20, 2024 cut the block subsidy to 3.125 bitcoin, so daily new issuance dropped to roughly 450 coins regardless of how many buyers appeared. Every previous cycle has topped somewhere between twelve and eighteen months after a halving, which is a pattern with four observations behind it, not a law.
The demand side changes shape each time. The 2017 run was retail buying through exchanges that could not open accounts fast enough. The 2020 to 2021 run added corporate treasuries and a futures market. The run into October 2025 was largely an access story: US spot exchange-traded funds began trading on January 11, 2024 and gave brokerage and pension money a route in, and bitcoin passed 100,000 dollars for the first time on December 4, 2024.
Leverage then amplifies whatever is happening. Perpetual futures funding rates climb, borrowed positions build up in the same direction, and the market becomes fragile precisely when it feels strongest.
Where you see it
The signs of a bull market are operational before they are emotional, and the operational ones cost you money.
Fees rise. Block space is auctioned, so a crowded market pushes the fee rate up and turns a cheap withdrawal into an expensive one. Anyone moving coins to self-custody during a frenzy pays for the privilege of good timing.
Onboarding slows. Verification queues at exchanges lengthen exactly when new buyers arrive, and support tickets go unanswered for days. Bitcoin ATMs and instant-buy widgets quietly widen their premiums, because they can.
Marketing intensifies. Referral bonuses, leverage promotions, new tokens named after whatever is trending, and a wave of impersonation scams all track the price. The correlation between rising prices and fraud volume is one of the most reliable relationships in this market.
And the label itself becomes a sales tool. "We are in a bull market" is used to justify buying at any price, which is the one conclusion the phrase does not support.
Bull market vs FOMO
A bull market is a condition of the market; fear of missing out is a condition of the buyer, and the second is what turns the first into a loss. Prices can rise for months while you calmly buy a fixed amount each week, which is a bull market experienced without FOMO. Equally, FOMO shows up in flat and falling markets whenever a single asset runs. The tell is in what changes: if a rising chart makes you increase your position size, shorten your time horizon, or borrow, that is not analysis. It is the emotion, and it consistently produces the worst average entry price in the record.