Bitcoin bull cycle could gain 3–5x, CryptoQuant CEO says

CryptoQuant founder Ki Young Ju expects Bitcoin’s bull cycle to deliver 3–5x gains as institutional ownership reduces extreme volatility.

Bitcoin bull cycle could gain 3–5x, CryptoQuant CEO says

Bitcoin has entered what CryptoQuant founder Ki Young Ju describes as a more mature bull cycle that could deliver a 3–5x gain while avoiding the 10x rallies and 80% drawdowns seen in earlier eras.

Summary

Ki Young Ju expects Bitcoin’s current bull cycle to deliver gains of roughly three-to-five times.
Bitcoin’s MVRV ratio has remained above one throughout this cycle, according to Ju’s analysis Tuesday.
Rising realized capitalization indicates fresh capital inflows while older whales have stopped selling, Ju says.
Futures whales built large long positions near Bitcoin’s recent bottom, according to CryptoQuant’s founder Tuesday.
Bitcoin trades near $87,000 after gaining more than 14% over the past seven days Wednesday.

CryptoQuant founder Ki Young Ju said the increase in Bitcoin’s market size and institutional ownership is reducing the extremes that characterized previous cycles dominated by retail traders and speculative capital. He expects a milder bull market followed by a less severe bear market, though his outlook remains a forecast and does not establish a specific future Bitcoin price.

Ju did not specify the exact price or date from which his 3–5x calculation should be measured. The projection therefore describes the scale he expects from the full cycle, not a forecast that Bitcoin will rise three to five times from its current price near $87,000.

I expect this Bitcoin bull cycle to deliver 3–5x rather than another 10x+ parabolic rally, followed by a milder bear market.

When Bitcoin was smaller and retail dominated, hot money fueled explosive rallies and 80% crashes. Today, a much larger market and growing institutional… pic.twitter.com/KmUd32jq13

— Ki Young Ju (@ki_young_ju) September 22, 2026

Bitcoin bull cycle may be producing smaller extremes

Ju’s argument centers on how Bitcoin’s market structure has changed as its capitalization has grown.

CoinGecko shows Bitcoin trading around $87,100 on Sept. 23, up roughly 14% over seven days, with a market capitalization near $1.75 trillion. BTC has recovered sharply from around $75,600 on Sept. 15 and traded above $86,000 this week.

Earlier Bitcoin cycles started from far smaller valuations, allowing comparatively modest capital inflows to produce large percentage moves. Ju has argued for months that this relationship has weakened as Bitcoin has grown.

Bitcoin now requires far more capital to produce the percentage gains seen in earlier cycles. Ju estimated in July that roughly $697 billion of realized-cap growth had produced a 689% gain during the current cycle, while around $2.7 billion generated gains exceeding 55,000% during Bitcoin’s early years.

At the time, he estimated another parabolic rally could require more than $1 trillion of additional realized capital. His latest 3–5x forecast takes a more measured view, with institutional ownership and Bitcoin’s larger valuation limiting the percentage response to each new dollar entering the network.

“I expect this Bitcoin bull cycle to deliver 3–5x rather than another 10x+ parabolic rally, followed by a milder bear market,” Ju wrote.

The prediction does not mean Bitcoin cannot experience sharp corrections. Ju’s claim is that the amplitude of full market cycles is declining as the asset matures.

MVRV staying above one supports Ju’s maturity thesis

Ju pointed to Bitcoin’s market-value-to-realized-value ratio, or MVRV, as one piece of evidence.

MVRV compares Bitcoin’s market capitalization with realized capitalization. CryptoQuant explains that realized cap values each coin at the price when it last moved, creating an estimate of the aggregate on-chain cost basis of holders.

An MVRV ratio below one means market capitalization has fallen below realized capitalization, indicating the average holder is underwater based on that framework.

Ju said MVRV never dropped below one during the current cycle, even when Bitcoin experienced large drawdowns. Under his interpretation, Bitcoin therefore avoided the deep holder capitulation that occurred during previous bear-market bottoms.

CryptoQuant’s methodology defines the PnL Index as a combination of MVRV, net unrealized profit and loss, and holder profitability measures. Ju said the index is producing less extreme cycle tops and bottoms while bottom formations are occurring at progressively higher levels of aggregate profitability.

Its 365-day moving average is now forming what Ju described as a “meaningful inflection.” The signal remains an analytical model based on historical on-chain behavior and does not guarantee a continued bull market.

CryptoQuant’s Bull-Bear Market Cycle Indicator had already moved into bullish territory earlier this year. CryptoQuant cycle signal turned bullish for the first time since March 2023 as its PnL-based gauge moved above its long-term threshold.

Realized cap shows new capital entering Bitcoin

Another part of Ju’s argument is Bitcoin’s rising realized capitalization. Because realized cap increases when coins change hands at higher prices, CryptoQuant uses the measure to estimate the amount of capital stored within the network. Ju said its continued increase indicates fresh money is entering Bitcoin even as price gains become less explosive.

Recent data supports the direction of that trend. Bitcoin’s realized capitalization added more than $4.6 billion during one week in August, although CryptoQuant contributor Darkfost cautioned that the 30-day growth rate was still only 0.4% at the time.

Ju had previously pointed to an even larger structural change. In June, he said Bitcoin’s realized cap had increased by $467 billion over two years while price was almost unchanged across the period he measured, evidence in his view that much more capital is needed to create the same price response seen in earlier cycles.

His latest post adds two holder groups to the picture. Ju said “OG whales,” or large early holders, have stopped selling, while futures-market whales built sizable long positions near the recent bottom.

Those claims come from CryptoQuant’s cohort and derivatives analysis. Whale classifications depend on the firm’s wallet-labeling and transaction methodology, so they should not be read as proof that every early Bitcoin holder has stopped selling.

Institutional demand grows as Bitcoin returns above $86,000

Ju tied declining cycle volatility partly to increasing institutional ownership.

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs provide one measurable source of institutional and brokerage demand. Bitcoin funds attracted $433 million on Sept. 18 after large withdrawals earlier in the week, while buying increased further as Bitcoin cleared resistance above $82,000.

Bitcoin ETF inflows returned as BTC broke above $86,000, though HashKey researcher Tim Sun cautioned that ETF flows often confirm an existing market move instead of causing it.

Corporate treasury demand has expanded as well. Bernstein estimated in June that ETFs and corporate treasury buyers had provided around $12 billion of combined Bitcoin inflows during 2026, with treasury companies accounting for most of that demand at the time. The estimate came from Bernstein research and is not an on-chain measure of all institutional ownership.

Ju sees the changing holder base as a trade-off. In his view, deeper institutional participation makes another 10x move harder while reducing the likelihood of the roughly 80% bear-market collapses seen in earlier Bitcoin cycles.

“Giving up the 10x parabola also means giving up the 80% crash,” he wrote.

The claim remains forward-looking. Bitcoin reached a record near $126,000 in October 2025 before falling toward $60,000 during 2026, demonstrating that large drawdowns remain possible even as institutional ownership increases.

Ju’s outlook has changed as on-chain data improved

The latest forecast represents a change from some of Ju’s earlier 2026 commentary.

In late May, Ju warned that Bitcoin’s bear market could extend into early 2027 because his PnL Index had not yet produced the combination of rising unrealized profits and falling realized profits that he wanted to see before calling a reversal.

Ju previously said Bitcoin’s bear market could last until early 2027 based on historical profitability cycles.

Since then, Bitcoin has recovered from lows near $60,000, realized capitalization has resumed growing, and CryptoQuant’s cycle indicators have improved. Ju’s latest comments focus on how large a bull cycle could become if the current recovery continues.

Bitcoin is now trading around $87,000, while Ju has not supplied a fixed price target, cycle-top date or mathematical level corresponding to his 3–5x estimate.

His latest thesis instead centers on market structure: rising realized capital, MVRV remaining above one, reduced selling from older whales and long positions accumulated by large derivatives traders near the bottom.

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