Bitcoin’s recent downturn is playing out much like previous cycles, and the market may not have seen the final leg lower, according to Michael Terpin, CEO of Transform Ventures.

Speaking at Consensus Hong Kong 2026, Terpin said the current phase aligns closely with bitcoin’s historical four-year cycle anchored to its halving events, casting doubt on recent calls that the market has already bottomed.

He dismissed suggestions that bitcoin had definitively found support at $80,000 and would face only a brief correction. Forecasts of a rapid rebound from $60,000 levels also appear overly optimistic, in his view.

While not predicting a prolonged, multi-year bear market, Terpin warned that conditions remain fragile and that the market could endure “one more point of pain.” He said bitcoin may need to revisit the $50,000 zone — or even fall back into the $40,000 range — before establishing a lasting floor.

At the heart of his analysis is bitcoin’s halving mechanism, which reduces miner rewards roughly every four years and slows the pace of new supply entering circulation. This built-in supply shock reinforces bitcoin’s scarcity narrative and gradually reduces inflation, ultimately capping total issuance at 21 million coins.

Historically, halvings have preceded powerful rallies as tightening supply meets sustained demand. But they have also been followed by speculative blow-offs and sharp retracements.

“We are exactly where we should be,” Terpin said, arguing that both the timing of peaks and subsequent corrections have shown a high degree of consistency across prior cycles.

He noted that in past cycles, the bull market peak has typically arrived in the fourth quarter after a halving, with the euphoric phase lasting roughly nine to 11 months. In the current cycle, he said, the rally stretched about 11 months before reversing.

Terpin pointed to the previous cycle as a reference point: bitcoin peaked on Nov. 10, 2021, and the eventual bottom came shortly after the bankruptcy of FTX on Nov. 10, 2022 — almost exactly one year apart.

For Terpin, those parallels reinforce the idea that the present correction is not an outlier, but another chapter in bitcoin’s well-established cyclical pattern.