A lengthy article by the agent of "BTC OG Insider Whale" refutes the bear market view: Confirming a bear market requires three negative conditions, and the current investor structure is significantly different from that of 2022.

According to Mars Finance, on January 19th, Garrett Jin, an agent of "BTC OG Insider Whale," posted a lengthy article on social media stating that some analysts have recently compared the current Bitcoin price movement to the market conditions of 2022 (a bearish view). While there may be some similarities in short-term price patterns, this comparison appears completely absurd when viewed in the long term. Garrett Jin explained that the current macroeconomic background is diametrically opposed to that of 2022. At the beginning of 2022, the primary goal of capital was risk aversion, and Bitcoin exhibited a high-level distribution structure within a tightening cycle. In the current macroeconomic environment, the US liquidity index has broken through both short-term and long-term downtrend lines, indicating a new upward trend is emerging. Furthermore, between 2021 and 2022, Bitcoin exhibited a weekly M-top structure, a pattern typically associated with long-term cycle tops and capable of suppressing prices for an extended period. Currently, the weekly uptrend channel has been broken. From a probabilistic perspective, this appears more like a bear trap before a rebound back into the channel. While the possibility of a bear market cannot be ruled out, it's important to note that the $80,850/$62,000 range underwent significant consolidation and turnover. This previous digestion process offered a better risk-reward ratio for long positions: upside potential significantly outweighed downside risk. A renewed bear market would require a new inflationary shock or a major geopolitical crisis comparable to that of 2022; central banks resuming interest rate hikes or quantitative tightening of their balance sheets; and a decisive and sustained price drop below $80,850. Until these conditions are met, asserting a structural bear market is premature and more speculative than analytical. The biggest difference between the current (early 2026) Bitcoin investor structure and that of 2022 lies in the shift from retail-driven, highly leveraged speculation to institutional-driven, structurally long-term holding. In 2022, Bitcoin experienced a typical "crypto-native bear market" driven by retail panic selling and a chain of leveraged liquidations. Bitcoin has now entered a much more mature institutional era, characterized by stable underlying demand, locked supply, and institutional-level volatility.