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Summary
- US headline CPI fell to 3.5% year-over-year in June, down from 4.2% in May.
- Bitcoin gained roughly 2.7% in 24 hours, pushing back above $63,800.
- The multi-week price pattern now resembles a 2018 pattern that later reversed.
- That 2018 cycle gave back its entire summer bounce by September.
Bitcoin rose above $63,800 on Tuesday after the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that consumer prices fell 0.4% in June compared with May, pushing annual inflation down to 3.5% from 4.2% the previous month. The reading came in softer than markets had priced in, and the total crypto market capitalization rose within hours of the release, climbing to $2.19 trillion, up 2.05% on the day.
The rally itself isn’t unusual. What’s drawing attention on trading desks is a specific historical comparison that analyst Benjamin Cowen posted shortly after the print, arguing that Bitcoin’s overall price structure over the past several weeks – not just today’s move – tracks almost step for step with what happened in the summer of 2018.
Why the 2018 comparison is about sequencing, not price level
Cowen’s comparison rests on the order of moves across several weeks rather than on where Bitcoin traded in 2018 versus now. In his read, Bitcoin opened that summer with two consecutive green weeks, followed by a red third week heading into the CPI release, and only then staged a bounce that carried into late July and early August. That bounce didn’t hold. By September, the coin had given back the entirety of those gains.
In 2018, Bitcoin started late June/early July with 2 green weeks.
3rd week was red going into CPI.
Then Bitcoin bounced higher into late July/early August, before giving all the gains back by September.
Similar setup today. pic.twitter.com/PAOaiEC2sq
— Benjamin Cowen (@benjamincowen) July 14, 2026
He’s arguing the current chart is following the same sequence: a similar two-week advance, a red week around this CPI print, and now a bounce that, if the analog holds, would top out in the next three to four weeks before reversing. Cowen is pointing to the broader weekly pattern leading into and through this print. His argument doesn’t hinge on the CPI release itself causing today’s move.
The comparison is a pattern match, not a price forecast, and Cowen didn’t attach a specific target or date to when a reversal would begin.
Overbought RSI Reading Complicates the Bounce
| Metric | Reading | What it signals |
|---|---|---|
| BTC/USDT price | $63,838 | Up from a $62,000 intraday low over the past two days |
| RSI (14, 30-min) | 76.21 | Overbought territory, above the 70 threshold |
| 24h change | +2.76% | Sharp short-term move, not a gradual grind |
| Total crypto market cap | $2.19T | Broad participation, not isolated to Bitcoin |
Looking at the 30-minute BTC/USDT chart myself on TradingView, the RSI reading of 76.21 is the number worth watching. An RSI above 70 measures how fast and how far price has moved in a short window, and a reading this high usually means the move happened quickly enough that a pause or a pullback is common before the next leg, whichever direction that turns out to be. That doesn’t mean the bounce is invalid, but a reading this high explains why some traders are treating this rally as a short-term event rather than confirmation of a trend change.
Where the 2018 Analog Could Break Down
The comparison also skips over a market structure that didn’t exist in 2018. Spot Bitcoin ETFs only launched in January 2024, and this year they’ve behaved as a genuine price driver rather than a footnote. US spot Bitcoin ETFs broke an eight-week outflow streak with a $197 million net inflow for the week ending July 10, led by a $209 million single-day inflow into BlackRock’s IBIT on July 6 – but that recovery didn’t last. On July 13, the complex reversed hard, according to Farside Investors data, shedding $424.7 million in a single session as IBIT and Fidelity’s FBTC both posted their largest outflows in weeks. That kind of whipsaw has no equivalent in 2018, when Bitcoin traded purely on spot and futures demand with no regulated fund wrapper capable of pulling this much capital in or out within days. A repeat of the 2018 pattern would need ETF flows to stabilize through the analog window; the current pattern – a brief inflow run erased almost as quickly as it built – suggests that stability hasn’t arrived yet.
The rate backdrop differs too. Cowen’s 2018 analog took place mid-hiking-cycle, when tightening policy was a headwind for risk assets generally. The current setup is shaped by softening inflation data and shifting expectations for Fed policy, which is a different mechanism acting on price even if the weekly candle pattern looks similar. A chart-only comparison doesn’t capture that distinction, since sequencing analysis by design ignores what’s driving the sequence.
A Reversal Only Shows Up If ETF Flows Stay Negative
If the 2018 analog plays out the way Cowen describes, the next three to four weeks would see Bitcoin extend the current bounce, with a reversal only becoming visible closer to September. That means the ETF flow picture matters as much as the calendar – and the July 13 reversal already argues against the bounce extending cleanly, regardless of what the 2018 structure suggests. Traders working short time frames are likely to treat the current RSI reading as a reason to size positions conservatively rather than chase the move. Longer-term holders have less reason to react to a single CPI print either way, since the analog is about seasonal positioning across a multi-week structure, not a change in Bitcoin’s underlying demand.
The next print that matters for this thesis is the July CPI release, expected in mid-August, which will show whether softening inflation is a trend or a one-month blip, and whether the weekly price structure keeps tracking the 2018 setup or breaks from it.
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