Bitcoin closed the week at $81,159 on Coinbase, above its 50-week moving average, which sits at $78,788. The last weekly close above that line came on Nov. 9, 2025, more than 10 months ago. Cointelegraph reported the move, citing TradingView data.
It is also the highest weekly close in four months. Analysts read the signal differently. Some see the end of the bear market, others want more confirmation. We went through the numbers on both sides.
The week ended 3% above the average
The gap between the close and the average is $2,371, or about 3%. From the July low near $57,000 (on July 1 Bitcoin traded at its lowest level in 21 months) the price has risen roughly 42%. From the end-of-December level, when Bitcoin traded near $90,000, it is still about 10% lower.
The bounce itself was sharp. Decrypt called it the sharpest rally in two years, one that ran almost entirely on short liquidations. That is why the weekly close carries weight: it shows the price held the level rather than merely touching it during a fast move.
On Monday Bitcoin trades near $81,700 by Cointelegraph quotes, so it stays above the line at the start of the new week. Anyone planning to sell Bitcoin for hryvnia after such a rebound can compare exchanger offers on our site, because their rates differ from exchange prices.
What history says about reclaims of the average
Alex Thorn, head of research at Galaxy, described this line back in August as a ceiling for bear markets. By his count, in four of the five completed bear markets the bottom was definitively in once the price first broke the average to the upside. So in one case out of five the rule did not hold. The line averages almost a full year of prices, so it reacts slowly, and reclaims of it do not happen often.
"Essentially, retaking the 50w MA has previously confirmed the end of a bear market."
Alex Thorn, head of firmwide research at Galaxy Research, from a research note published in August 2026
The statistic is not unconditional. Of 13 weekly reclaims of the average, two ended in a new lower low, and both fell in the 2021-2022 bear market. That is roughly 15% false signals.
Collective Shift founder Ben Simpson said before the close that this was "the last thing I need to see" before calling a bull market. According to him, after breaking above this level in 2017, 2020 and 2023, Bitcoin gained between 700% and 900%.
Skeptics are waiting for $83,000
The clearest argument against rushing came from Ryan Lee, chief analyst at Bitget. One weekly close does not confirm a cycle bottom. What matters more is whether Bitcoin holds above the average and forms higher lows. In earlier cycles some reclaims failed, especially when the macro backdrop stayed difficult.
Lee also admits the market is sturdier than it was earlier in the year. Repeated liquidations flushed out the borrowed positions that had piled up, and signs of returning institutional demand have appeared. In his words, in earlier cycles a reclaim of this level tended to come after the major low was established and longer-term momentum had started to recover.
Trader Craig Cobb does not rely on this average at all. His marker is $83,000. If the price settles above it, the monthly chart will show no lower high, and the trend will no longer be down. From the current close that level is about 2.3% away.
Cobb's second condition concerns quarterly candles. A switch from a red to a green candle on the three-month chart has happened 15 times in Bitcoin's history. In 11 cases the high of the first green candle was later broken, and each of those 11 moves led to a new all-time high. So Cobb waits for $83,000, for the close of the September three-month candle, and for a break of its high.
The Fisher Transform gives a second signal
Analyst Willy Woo pointed to the Fisher Transform indicator, created in 2002. It smooths price action and shows trend strength on a scale with zero at the center. On Bitcoin's monthly chart, a bullish crossover of its two lines has matched a bear-market bottom three times out of three, each without a fake-out. The current crossover, which happened in July at -2.26, is the fourth on record.
On the weekly chart the indicator hit a swing low of -2.85 at the end of last December, when Bitcoin traded near $90,000. Since then Fisher has printed higher lows while the price made lower lows, which forms a bullish divergence. The same pattern accompanied the last six months of the previous bear market in 2022.
Woo ties that reliability to the absence of speculators at market bottoms. When the price falls to a level where investors see value, buying returns and the reversal is cleaner, without the choppy fake-outs familiar from tops. During long uptrends speculators react to short moves, so there Fisher manages to print a bearish crossover and later a fresh bullish one.
Woo himself warns that the price could still consolidate and move lower. He also acknowledged earlier that the lows lacked the usual buyer interest, and bid-side activity pointed to only a handful of large investors.
The risks sit in a lopsided market and false signals
A Glassnode and Bybit report shows how narrow this market has been. Over two years Bitcoin gained 28%, while the median mid-cap altcoin lost 74%. Ethereum went roughly sideways in price over the same stretch. Comparing the current rebound to a classic rotation into altcoins is premature.
The report data is fixed at the August 23 close, before the current rebound, and Glassnode's venue coverage is limited. So the conclusions about the skew are approximate.
- Borrowing is concentrated in risky assets. Futures open interest on Bitcoin equals about 2% of its market cap, while for PEPE it is around 24%.
- ETF flows are lopsided too. Spot Bitcoin funds have drawn about $55.2 billion in cumulative net inflows, Ethereum funds only $13.1 billion. Spot Solana funds, newer and smaller, have drawn about $29.7 million.
- A failed reclaim of the line is possible, as 2 cases out of 13 showed.
- Corporate treasuries are buying little. According to Cointelegraph, Bitcoin treasury companies bought just 5.9K BTC in three months, and their paper losses linger.
- The rebound has broadened. According to Decrypt, after the move back above $80,000 the market cap rose 4.6% in a day to $2.85 trillion, and Solana added about 10%.
The signal is there, the confirmation is not
The close at $81,159 is $2,371 above the average, the Fisher Transform printed its fourth bullish crossover on record, and Cobb's marker is about 2.3% away. Working against that are 2 false reclaims out of 13 and a market skewed toward Bitcoin, and the first test will be next week's close. If the price holds above $78,788 and clears $83,000, skeptics will have fewer arguments. If it drops back under the line, the line becomes a ceiling again.
Comments
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *