Galaxy's Alex Thorn Says Bitcoin's Bottom Is In, Pointing to a Signal With a Perfect Track Record

Alex Thorn, Galaxy's head of firmwide research, says bitcoin's bottom is in, and he is pointing to a technical signal he says has never failed before.

THE SIGNAL

Bitcoin spent 44 straight weeks below its 50-week moving average before reclaiming it in the week of September 20, and has now closed above it for five consecutive weeks. Thorn's research found four earlier instances where bitcoin reclaimed the 50-week average after spending at least 20 weeks below it. In every one of those cases, bitcoin's lowest close over the following year stayed within 8.4 percent of the level where it crossed back above the line. "We believe the bottom is in," Thorn said.

The 200-week moving average also held as support through the decline. The worst weekly close during the drawdown came in just 4.7 percent below that line, a shallower breach than in 2015, 2018 or 2022.

WHO SOLD, AND WHO DIDN'T

Thorn's case leans heavily on 13F filing data. Nine hedge funds and trading desks, including Millennium Management, Brevan Howard, Goldman Sachs, Capula Management, Farallon Capital, D.E. Shaw, Schonfeld Strategic Advisors, Symmetry Investments and Tudor Investment, cut their spot bitcoin ETF exposure by between 29 and 100 percent, trimming roughly 68,000 BTC combined as the cash-and-carry basis trade that justified holding those shares collapsed. Total institutional ETF holdings fell from 355,000 BTC in September 2025 to 307,000 BTC by June 2026, a 14 percent drop, even as bitcoin's price fell by roughly half.

The buyers on the other side of that trade were different in kind. Morgan Stanley's wealth management arm, Mubadala and the Abu Dhabi Investment Council were among roughly 2,200 other filers who added about 20,000 BTC over the same stretch. "It wasn't those people that took bitcoin from 60 to 80K in August that brought us back up to this range," Thorn said. "It was longer term thinkers, people with a longer term view on bitcoin."

THE CROWD STILL ISN'T HERE

Thorn's broader argument is that bitcoin has been resilient through a rough month for risk assets, including a sharp bout of anxiety over AI infrastructure spending, precisely because the people selling off the AI trade do not hold bitcoin to begin with. "They've already sold the bitcoin," he said of macro traders spooked by the AI trade. "You got to have it in your inventory if you're going to sell it." Onchain selling by long-dormant coins has also slowed sharply from its 2024 and 2025 pace, meaning the sellers most likely to sell this cycle have largely already sold.

The next round of 13F filings, due November 16, will show whether institutions kept buying through the September quarter. Thorn said he expects a similar pattern of wealth managers and sovereign funds adding, with the macro-trading crowd still largely absent.

THE FOUR-YEAR CYCLE, AGAIN

Thorn had publicly doubted bitcoin's four-year cycle in 2024 and early 2025. He now says the data proved him wrong: bitcoin's October 2025 all-time high landed almost exactly where the post-halving cycle pattern predicted, and the June 2026 low, while a few months earlier than the historical pattern suggested, still fits the broader pattern. Each bear market in bitcoin's history has also been shallower than the one before it, with this cycle's roughly 53 percent peak-to-trough decline well below the 86, 84 and 77 percent drops that followed the 2013, 2017 and 2021 peaks.

WHAT WOULD CHANGE THE CALL

Thorn's thesis has a specific, stated failure condition rather than a vague hedge. If bitcoin closes a week back below its 50-week moving average and does not recover within about a month, Thorn said that would directly undercut the bullish case. Until that happens, his argument is that this is a rare moment where the technical bottom looks to be in, the fastest-moving sellers have already left, and the retail and tourist capital that historically shows up well after a bottom has not yet arrived.

This story comes from the Simply Bitcoin Live show. Watch the full episode.