Bitcoin is flirting with a historic first that bulls most likely do not need to hear: Two consecutive years of losses, one thing the cryptocurrency has by no means skilled in its 18-year historical past.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency completed 2025 down 6.34% and has misplaced one other 15.65% thus far in 2026, buying and selling round $73,850 on November 10. If Bitcoin fails to recuperate above its annual opening value of roughly $87,500 earlier than December 31, it’s going to shut two calendar years in the purple for the primary time.
Historic annual returns present Bitcoin has skilled a number of brutal crashes since its creation, however every adverse calendar yr has been adopted by a constructive one. Even the disastrous 2018 and 2022 bear markets failed to provide consecutive annual losses.
The historic sample is obvious. Its significance, nonetheless, deserves a nearer look.
Two reds are usually not too purple
Bitcoin’s earlier annual crashes had been significantly extra painful than its present shedding streak. The cryptocurrency plunged 73.56% in 2018 and one other 64.27% in 2022, wiping out most of buyers’ holdings in every respective yr.
By comparability, Bitcoin’s 6.34% decline in 2025 was comparatively delicate. Add the roughly 16% loss recorded this yr, and the mixed decline involves roughly 21% after accounting for compounding.
That is a fraction of the losses buyers endured in earlier crypto winters, regardless of the market probably recording a longer sequence of adverse annual returns.
Bitcoin’s efficiency in 2024 additionally gives some perspective. The cryptocurrency surged greater than 120% that yr, which means buyers who purchased initially of 2024 would nonetheless be sitting on substantial positive aspects regardless of the following decline.
The image modifications significantly when measuring losses from the market’s precise peak as a substitute of calendar-year boundaries.
Bitcoin reached roughly $126,000 in October 2025 earlier than crashing under $58,000 throughout 2026. That represented a decline exceeding 50%, a considerably extra painful transfer than the 21% mixed loss mirrored in the 2 annual candlesticks.
Analysts have pointed to Bitcoin’s more and more institutional investor base, spot exchange-traded funds, and deeper market liquidity as potential explanations for its comparatively smaller bear-market drawdowns.
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These structural modifications could assist clarify why Bitcoin’s present market cycle appears totally different from earlier ones, though they haven’t eradicated main value crashes.
