Perma bears, like their hyper bullish counterparts, love to shoehorn into the chaos to support their gloom.
Take Michael Burry, the “Big Short” oracle of doomsday call fame, who is now comparing bitcoin’s ongoing bear market to the brutal 2022 plunge, suggesting ominously that this crash has legs that run much deeper.
In a post on X in the early Asian hours on Thursday, Burry highlighted similarities between BTC’s fall from the October high of $126,000 to $70,000 and Bitcoin’s plunge in late 2021 and 2022, arguing in a chart that the patterns match perfectly so far.
The previous bear market saw bitcoin drop from around $35,000 to below $20,000 before stabilizing — a move that, when mapped at today’s price levels, carries risk towards the low $50,000s.
Burry didn’t specify a target, but the visual comparison was enough to reignite the debate over whether bitcoin is repeating an ancient script or whether the analogy is being stretched too far.
Analysts and traders questioned whether a single historical instance even qualifies as a meaningful pattern.
“Is it a pattern if it happened once?” asked trading firm GSR, capturing broader skepticism about analog-driven market calls.
The criticism goes beyond semantics, but bitcoin’s 2021-2022 collapse unfolded under very different conditions, characterized by aggressive Federal Reserve tightening, collapsing crypto-native leverage and heavy retail participation.
On the other hand, today’s market is shaped by spot bitcoin ETFs, deeper institutional liquidity and a macro backdrop dominated less by interest rate hikes and more by cross-asset volatility linked to fears of consumption in equities, commodities and artificial intelligence.
Still, Burry’s comments have landed at a sensitive time.
Bitcoin has taken a beating this week, falling below $71,000 before rebounding and then sliding again as global risk appetite worsened.
Burry’s story adds weight to the discussion, even when his calls prove controversial. His approach is often centered on shifts in positioning and market psychology rather than accurate forecasting.
In that sense, the chart serves less as a prediction and more as a warning about failed rebounds and dampened conviction.
