Is Bitcoin Really Headed to $38,000? NYDIG's October Scenario, Explained

Key Takeaways

A Bleak Scenario

Bitcoin financial services firm NYDIG has mapped out a scenario in which bitcoin’s slide extends to $38,000-$39,000 by October, if the 2025-2026 downturn follows the depth and duration of the market’s previous major resets. The scenario appeared in the firm’s second-quarter review, “ Leverage Not Spot Demand Is Driving Bitcoin While Value and Momentum Buyers Wait,” which was published last week.

The firm was explicit about why the old playbook is back on traders’ screens, noting:

“ Bitcoin’s 2025-2026 drawdown is bringing the 4-year cycle narrative back into focus, because the timing and structure increasingly resemble the prior reset years of 2014, 2018 and 2022 even though the path has not matched those drawdowns exactly.”

Bitcoin traded near $64,500 at the time of the report, down almost 30% since the start of the year and roughly 50% below its October 2025 all-time high of $126,080. Earlier this month the market carved out a 21-month low when bitcoin crashed to $58,035, briefly wiping about $40 billion from the wider crypto economy in a single day.

The Four-Year Math

Bitcoin’s four-year cycle refers to the market’s historical rhythm of a peak, a year-long contraction, and a recovery, loosely anchored to the network’s halving schedule. The bear markets of 2014, 2018 and 2022 produced peak-to-trough declines in the range of 75% to 85%.

Applying a 2022-style decline of roughly 70% to the October 2025 peak of $126,080 lands almost exactly on NYDIG’s $38,000-$39,000 corridor, with the timing pointing to a potential floor by October 2026, four years after the last cycle’s bottom.

NYDIG stopped well short of calling the figure a forecast, noting that 2025 was bitcoin’s least volatile year on record, which could compress the drawdown and produce a shallower landing than previous cycles. In an earlier note, the firm also observed that the classic capitulation markers have not yet appeared, writing that the market has seen “no long-term-holder capitulation, no terminal insolvencies, and no reset.”

Wall Street’s Range of Answers

The $38,000 scenario is the most bearish of the major desk calls, given K33 Research has argued the opposite, i.e. the dip near $60,000 already represented this bear market’s maximum drawdown, with consolidation between $60,000 and $75,000 ahead. Standard Chartered has similarly suggested the bottom formed around the $59,000 level, while Galaxy Digital has floated a decline toward $40,000.

Separately, Cryptoquant CEO Ki Young Ju has warned the bear market could stretch into early 2027, while Grayscale sees two paths out of the downturn hinging on macro catalysts in the coming months.

With more than half of all BTC sitting at an unrealized loss (a condition that has accompanied every prior cycle floor), analysts agree the market is late in the contraction but are split on how much pain remains.

NYDIG’s own narrative leaves the question open, with the firm characterizing the market as leverage-driven rather than demand-driven (where value and momentum buyers are waiting on the sidelines).