According to Garrett Jin, the correction that began last October almost completely purged retail speculative capital from the Bitcoin market.
This sharply reduced liquidity and made investors more cautious, now favoring a wait-and-see strategy. At the same time, some smaller players from the US and Asia reallocated funds to other assets.
"The aggressive rise in artificial intelligence (AI) stocks in China, Japan, and the US has absorbed significant amounts of liquidity. A similar effect was caused by the surge in demand for precious metals," explained the former head of BitForex.
The vulnerability of the Bitcoin market, according to the analyst, is exacerbated by the high proportion of inexperienced participants. Popular market assumptions like the "four-year cycle" are nothing more than a tool for influencing trader sentiment, Jin believes.
"Such simplistic assumptions allow exchanges and market makers to actively manipulate crowd sentiment," the expert stated.
He compared Bitcoin's current state to the situation on the Chinese stock market in 2015. Back then, after the stock bubble burst, prices traded sideways for several months before beginning a sustained rally.
Jin believes that the end of the "cleaning phase" is signaled by Bitcoin futures trading volumes, which remain near historical lows. This indicates that the market is almost finished shedding excess leverage and short-term speculation.
Earlier, former PayPal CEO and current Lightspark CEO David Marcus called Bitcoin the best store of value and provided a long-term price forecast for the asset.