The seasonal pattern usually runs the other way. Across bitcoin’s entire record, the fourth quarter has been the strongest by a wide margin, with an average gain of 77% with a median of nearly 48%, the stretch that has repeatedly rescued mediocre years.
The third quarter is the opposite, the weakest quarter on average and often flat. In other words, the calendar would normally argue for a quiet third quarter and a strong finish in the fourth quarter. In 2018 and 2022, seasonal strength failed. The bear market overtook the calendar and the fourth quarter, usually the best, became one of the worst.
A sample of two might speak for itself, and both of those years faced specific collapses that have no exact equivalent today. The comparison doesn’t mean that 2026 will follow 2018 or 2022, but it does mean that the only other times bitcoin started a year this weak, the weakness was a symptom of something structural rather than a transient decline.
Whether the 2026 belongs in that category depends on what drives sales, and the drivers look more like a grind than a panic.
U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have seen record outflows over the past month, the number of active users on the chain has remained near the low end of its range, and capital has steadily rotated into AI stocks, which just delivered their best quarter this year while the crypto slumped.
