Bitcoin bottom signal: ETF outflows, miner stress, and why the 2026 recession looks like an outlier
Despite recession talk dominating the timeline, Bitcoin may be approaching a low cycle as Spot Bitcoin ETF flows continue to drain and the miner economy tightens.
Important points: A recession and stock market crash in 2026 still looks like an outlier scenario. In other words, there is a possibility that Bitcoin will bottom out due to its natural mechanisms, such as forced sales, unwinding of leverage, stress among miners, and liquidation levels that change the characteristics of buyers.
- TL;DR: ETF flows are still drying up, typically forcing prices to find new settlement levels.
- The economic situation for miners appears to be tough (fees are negligible compared to revenue), increasing the possibility of mechanical selling pressure on drawdowns.
- Macro forecasts and market odds still treat a 2026 recession as a minority outcome, so Bitcoin could bottom out without a global crash.
The framework I use for Bitcoin has barely moved since last September, when I wrote about Bitcoin before October's all-time high.
I elaborated on this again in my medium-term $49,000 Bitcoin bearish thesis on November 24, 2025, and then confirmed it on January 30, 2026.
In both posts, the message was consistent.
Bitcoin still trades in cycles, and true “now is the low” moments tend to arrive when minor economics and institutional currents align, and the final bottom print usually feels mechanical rather than emotional.
what have What's changing is the way people are trying to make a jump toward 2026. The dialogue slips into a predictable groove. Many are leaning towards the theory that Bitcoin won't reach a true bottom unless there's a global recession or an equity sweep that drags down all risky assets in one synchronized liquidation.
I can understand why such stories spread. It's beautiful. It's dramatic. That gives everyone one obvious culprit.
But Bitcoin is no longer in the middle lane, having already lost more than $20,000 since the beginning of the year while the stock market is hitting new all-time highs.
Bitcoin ETF outflows: the cleanest stress gauge of the cycle
The second pillar of my framework is flow elasticity, and spot ETF flows are the cleanest real-time window we have ever experienced.
By late January, flows were signaling a decline in risk appetite, even as prices tried to stabilize.
Pharcyde had multiple big outflow dates, including approximately -$708.7 million on January 21st and -$817.8 million on January 29th. As of January 30, when I checked in, the year-to-date total was approximately -$1.095 billion. Since then, annual outflows have reached -$1.8 billion, leaving Fidelity's FBTC alone with $1 billion.
These types of prints change the way the psychology of “buying on the spur of the moment” works. In a friendly version of the ETF system, the allocator treats weakness as inventory, so down days are met with steady net longs. In the stressed version, the pipe flips to a drain and the price must move to a liquidation level where that drain returns to bid.
The important point is that this problem can occur even if everything else seems fine. Stocks may continue to fall, growth forecasts may remain intact, and Bitcoin may still experience a severe internal reset. This is because its marginal buyers and sellers are now visible daily on the flow table.
Miner economy and Bitcoin security budget already in winter mood
My first bearish case had a minor economics-based reason. Mining is where Bitcoin's real-world cost base intersects with market structure.
On January 29, miners generated approximately $37.22 million in revenue per day. Total daily trading fees paid on the same day were approximately $260,550.
This results in fees of approximately 0.7% of revenue.
This is important because it shows what the chain is actually We rely on it to keep us safe. The fees are basically negligible. Publishing is doing the heavy lifting. And issuance continues to shrink according to schedule. When the going gets tough, the burden shifts back to prices and hash economics.
The same atmosphere can be seen in the live price market. Menpool's feed has repeatedly shown that the median fee prediction for the next block remains dormant for long periods of time, exactly the type of environment where sharp price legs can occur even without a macro headline to act as a trigger.
This is why it seems to me that the $49,000 to $52,000 region is still a plausible cycle floor. This is a zone where narrative discourse tends to cede to the movement of inventory, from forced sellers and exhausted holders to allocators waiting for levels that allow them to adjust their size.
Possible recession in 2026: Why the macro crash still looks like an outlier
Major forecasters continue to use the word “deceleration” rather than “bankruptcy.” The IMF forecasts global growth in 2026 at 3.3%.
The World Bank expects growth to slow to 2.6% in 2026 and still sees the system as largely resilient despite the noise of trade tensions.
The OECD agrees, calling for a reduction in global GDP growth to 2.9% in 2026.
Then there is the market-implicit, crowd-sourced version of the same “risk exists but is not dominant” idea. In polymarkets, the probability of the U.S. going into recession by the end of 2026 hovers in the low 20s, high enough to matter but not high enough to explain the consensus baseline.
For ordinary people, the reality of this argument is employment. Because the labor market is what translates the “macro” into lived experience.
And here, the latest data brought up both warning signs and A reminder that “grind” and “crush” are not the same thing.
Employment Data: Macro Stress Tests Still Show Difficult Conditions
The BLS benchmark revision lowers the growth rate for nonfarm employment in 2025 from 584,000 to 181,000. It's an adjustment that changes the tone of the entire discussion. It also reflects what 2025 felt like, with slower hiring, fewer easy job changes, and a noticeable cooling in white-collar momentum.
At the same time, according to the same BLS announcement, the unemployment rate in January 2026 was 4.3%, and wages increased by 130,000, mainly due to health care and social assistance. Although the market has cooled down, it is still a market that is moving forward. And that also helps explain the weird split screen. Stock prices can continue to float while households continue to talk about “recession” over dinner.
This disconnect is why I continue to separate Bitcoin's internal cycle mechanics from the global doom storyline. There is a possibility that there will be another recession in 2026, but the market is still treating it as if it were the result of a minority.
And this is important for Bitcoin. Because it means you don't need global hell to get big drawdowns. Localized fires are sufficient. Leverage loosens, miners are forced into mechanical selling, ETF flows continue to leak, and prices fall until the nature of the buyer base changes.
Bitcoin has already fallen to the low $60,000 range, while stock prices continue to hit new highs. The divergence teeth That story. This chart looks like a standard cooling stage. It's been feeling like winter inside for the past few weeks.
So when I say that a recession or stock market crash in 2026 seems like an outlier, I'm not saying that the risks are gone. What I am saying is that the basic case has shifted to frictions absorbed by the system, including chaotic politics.
This makes setup easy. Bitcoin can still print cycles with Bitcoin-specific mechanisms.
Debt, delinquencies, and business bankruptcies: Stress can increase even when not labeled as a recession.
There is another macro pocket here that is important, even if it is below GDP forecasts and stock indexes in most people's mental strata.
The number of corporate bankruptcies is increasing, and the numbers are now high enough to change the “feel” of the business cycle, even as major economies continue to move forward. The number of eligible U.S. corporate bankruptcy filings in 2025 will reach 785, the highest since 2010, with 72 filings in December alone, according to S&P data.
The monthly situation is straightforward. Refinancing has become tougher, interest costs remain high, and the weakest balance sheets are starting to fail one by one. The pace had already picked up by mid-year, with the number of applications in the first half of 2025 at the highest level since 2010, according to Market Intelligence.
At home, stress is reflected in the cash register, making it even more visible. The New York Fed estimates total household debt in the fourth quarter of 2025 to be $18.8 trillion, an increase of $191 billion from the same quarter, and credit card balances at $1.28 trillion.
Credit card burdens are also increasing. According to a graph from the New York Fed, about 13% of card balances will be 90 days or more past due in the fourth quarter of 2025, and the quarterly rate of credit card balances becoming 90 days or more past due is about 7%.
The sharpest appears among young borrowers. The same New York Fed age breakdown shows that 18- to 29-year-olds are in the 9-10% range for serious credit card delinquency, with 30- to 39-year-olds not far behind.
In summary, this looks like a late-cycle challenge. As the year progresses, policy becomes more easing, but cracks in weak areas widen.
This also applies to Bitcoin. That’s because Bitcoin is effectively trading on liquidity, risk appetite, and forced selling long before it was labeled as an “official recession.”
Macro outlook for 2026: Friction, not collapse
The reason I continue to resist the “everything must collide together” paradigm is simple. That's because most forward-looking indicators continue to point to a confusing environment.
The IMF says the global economy is stable, with technology investment and adaptation offsetting trade policy headwinds. The World Bank uses the term “resilient” and clearly points to easing financial conditions as a cushion. Although the OECD has flagged vulnerabilities, the world continues to grow.
On a higher level, the JPMorgan Global Composite PMI hit 52.5 in January, with the S&P Global lead-through tie historically flat at an annualized pace of around 2.6% of global GDP. It's not exciting growth, but it's growth nonetheless.
Trade is another area where people expect cracks to appear first, and the situation also looks more complicated than on the verge of collapse. The UNCTAD trade update for 2026 mentions fragmentation and regulatory pressures, but “pressure” is not the same as “disruption.” The Kiel Trade Indicator is useful here because it runs closer to real-time than most macro series and separates delivery noise from underlying demand.
Bitcoin miners currently operate two businesses – drawdowns work differently
One underappreciated change in this cycle is that many miners no longer resemble pure Bitcoin margin machines.
Nowadays, more and more companies, such as energy and infrastructure companies, are mining Bitcoin.
It's important in two ways.
First, your chances of survival change. A second revenue stream allows us to continue operating in a low-fee environment and helps us fund capital expenditures even when the hash economy is tight.
Second, the way stress is expressed in market behavior changes. Miners building compute roadmaps may sell Bitcoin more mechanically when the market wants stability, by funding ramp-ups, protecting liquidity in power contracts, or constraining network conditions in ways that make them more flexible.
An overview of the pivot can be found in the public information. TeraWulf announced a long-term AI hosting agreement related to high capacity, with Google involved in its structure, according to a company release. DataCenterDynamics reports that Riot is also considering options to focus its capacity on AI and HPC.
As you zoom out, the operational landscape quickly becomes hectic. Negotiate power, manage shareholders, plan data holes, and buy machines while participating in the most brutal hash race on the planet. More moving parts tend to make you more reflexive when prices start to fall.
This is a big reason why the market can feel like winter internally, even before the chart delivers a full cathartic flush.
Bitcoin's bottom theory from $49,000 to $52,000 (and why it's still valid)
When stringing together inputs, the path is not complex.
Macro is resilient enough to keep synchronized global risk event stories out of the center lane. The recession probability of the polymarket reflects this. And the major forecasting agencies, the IMF, the World Bank, and the OECD, are in much the same relationship.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin's internal affairs appear to be tense. Fees remain a small portion of miner income, ETF flows show a substantial risk-off window, and mempool's on-chain fee tape is lethargic.
That combination creates pressure.
And the pressure is usually resolved in the same way with cryptocurrencies. That means a quick move, two or three sharp legs down, a washout of leverage, and a new group of buyers entering with conviction.
There is also an overlay of the real economy that markets often ignore until they can no longer ignore it. Both the S&P's bankruptcy numbers and the New York Fed's delinquency graph say the same thing. In other words, many companies and households are losing leeway. That could be a problem if stock prices don't collapse.
It tightens credit, prolongs discretionary spending, increases the probability that interest rates will decline over time, and shortens the runway for the policy response that tends to occur when the data makes tensions undeniable.
A final flush can still be caused by Bitcoin's native mechanisms. Fees continue to fall, miner economics tighten, and ETF flow tables remain disrupted. The macro adds a second element. It's a world where stress quietly increases and the path to easier conditions becomes shorter.
If the market gives us a mechanical reset, the liquidity regime could look friendlier on the other side, and that's the part of the cycle that interests me the most.
The $49,000 to $52,000 range remains my base case for inventory transfers. It's close enough to feel plausible from here, and psychologically clean enough to attract real size, especially from allocators who are waiting for less than $50,000 to treat Bitcoin as inventory.
Wildcards never go away. Geopolitics can always disrupt the world of neat predictions. Potentially escalating relations between China and Taiwan are actively traded on Polymarket, and prices can move quickly as headlines emerge.
But my focus remains intentionally boring: fees, ETF flows, miner behavior, etc.
Even if the global economy continues to move forward and stocks continue to behave as if nothing is wrong, if these resources remain weak and prices continue to bleed, a jump into the $40,000 range remains a realistic outcome.
Disclosure, this is market commentary and not financial advice. Risk management is more important than the story.
FAQ: Bitcoin bottom, ETF outflow, miner capitulation, possibility of 2026 recession
Will Bitcoin be near the bottom in 2026?
It's possible. A “near-bottom” setup typically appears when a forced sell-off becomes mechanical rather than emotional. We're seeing it in two places this cycle: continued outflows of spot Bitcoin ETFs and a tightening of the miner economy. The key will be whether the price finds a liquidation level where the buyer base shifts from push traders to allocators sizing actual inventory.
What are the biggest signs that Bitcoin is bottoming out?
The most useful “bottom signals” tend to cluster together rather than appearing singly. In this framework, the big three are: (1) ETF flows stabilizing after sustained outflows, (2) minor stress peaking out (or capitulation risk is priced in), and (3) pricing at a level where selling pressure subsides and bidding begins to consistently absorb supply. Instead of clean story moments, the bottom feels “mechanical” and often involves stock shifting.
How do Bitcoin ETF flows affect the price of Bitcoin?
Spot ETF flows act like an observable gauge of daily marginal demand. In the “friendly” version of the ETF era, there are net inflows on down days that support prices and compress drawdowns. In the “stressed” version, spills turn pipes into drains, and prices usually have to rise to a level where those flows stop leaking and demand reappears.
What is miner capitulation and why is it important for Bitcoin's bottom price?
Miner capitulation is the idea that miners are sufficiently oppressed by price, cost, or revenue conditions that they are forced to sell more aggressively or cease operations. This is important because miners regularly exist as a structural source of supply, especially when fees are low and profitability is tight. Bottoms often appear around the time when miner stress peaks and the market clears its supply.
Can Bitcoin bottom out in 2026 without a recession or stock market crash?
yes. Bitcoin does not require synchronized global liquidation to print cycles at low prices. Localized fires can cause it. Leverage loosens, ETF outflows continue, miners sell more mechanically, and prices fall until the nature of the buyer base changes. While a recession is still possible, it is not necessary for Bitcoin to reach liquidation levels.
Why is the $49,000 to $52,000 range important to this paper?
It is a clean zone close to the level of psychological plausibility, and it is also the kind of level where “narrative discussion” can turn into a stock movement. In other words, bands that are manually fed by forced sellers and exhausted holders to allocators who are waiting for numbers that can be sized. Markets bottom out not because the numbers are magical, but because behavior changes around those numbers.
What invalidates the theory that “Bitcoin will soon reach its bottom”?
The simplest disabling would be for the stress gauge to deteriorate with no sign of absorption. Mass ETF outflows continue, the mining economy tightens further, and prices are unable to find a level where bidding consistently offsets selling. If this situation continues, the “bottom soon” call will not be a matter of timing, but rather a deeper liquidation event, which could push the stock into the $40,000 range if the unwind accelerates.
