Bitcoin has triggered eight of VanEck’s 12 capitulation signals after falling 49% from its peak, although the firm’s historical data has shown no return advantage within six months.
Summary
- Eight of VanEck’s 12 capitulation indicators remain active, while all 12 fired during the past three months.
- Bitcoin averaged 12.8% returns after 90 days when eight to 12 signals were active.
- VanEck placed the next possible accumulation period between September and November.
- U.S. spot Bitcoin products received $663 million after losing about $2.4 billion the previous month.
VanEck said in its mid-August Bitcoin ChainCheck that the active signals place Bitcoin in a period of heavy market stress, but its backtest does not support expectations of a fast rebound.
The asset manager’s indicators cover price losses, miner finances, and the share of Bitcoin holders carrying unrealized losses. Each measure is designed to detect conditions that have appeared when selling pressure approached an extreme level during earlier market cycles.
All 12 indicators entered their capitulation zones at least once during the three months covered by the report, according to VanEck. Eight remained active when the firm took its latest readings, suggesting that the market may be late in the current decline without confirming that Bitcoin has reached its final low.
Bitcoin capitulation signals offer no six-month edge
VanEck’s historical results showed that periods with eight to 12 active signals did not produce unusually strong returns over the following three or six months.
When that number of indicators flashed, Bitcoin gained an average of 12.8% over the next 90 days, according to the report. Its average return across all comparable 90-day periods was higher at 15.2%.
Extending the holding period to 180 days produced a similar result. VanEck calculated an average gain of 32% after capitulation clusters, compared with Bitcoin’s 36.3% average across its full dataset.
Only the one-year holding period generated returns above Bitcoin’s historical baseline, the firm said. VanEck warned that the result came from 115 observation days that overlapped heavily, meaning the sample represented only a limited number of separate market events.
The report therefore treated the readings as a guide to Bitcoin’s position in its cycle, rather than a tool for finding the exact bottom. VanEck also disclosed that it has exposure to Bitcoin, including through investment products managed by the firm.
Under its method, most signals become active when their readings fall within the lowest 15% of their own recorded histories. Indicators in which a high value represents market stress use an upper extreme instead.
Price drawdown follows a separate rule. VanEck activates the indicator once Bitcoin has fallen more than 35% from its high, even if the decline is not extreme compared with earlier bear markets.
Bitcoin’s 49% fall from its October 2025 record met the fixed threshold but ranked only in the 35th percentile of past drawdowns, according to the report. Applying the same percentile test used for the other indicators “would put us at 7 of 12 rather than 8 of 12,” the firm said.
A shallower Bitcoin decline remains an assumption
Previous major Bitcoin bear markets produced peak-to-trough losses of 94%, 85%, 84%, and 78%, according to VanEck. The firm expects the current decline to stop earlier because today’s market includes U.S. spot exchange-traded products, more institutional holders, and fewer large unregulated companies whose sudden failures could cause forced selling.
VanEck described a shallower trough as an expectation; however, rather than a confirmed result. Earlier crashes occurred before U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs created a regulated source of demand, while the 2022 decline also included the collapses of crypto lender Celsius and exchange FTX.
The timing of the current downturn resembles earlier cycles more closely than its size. VanEck counted four completed bear markets since 2011 and found that their declines lasted an average of 11 months from peak to trough.
Removing the smaller 2011 cycle increased the average to 12.7 months, the report said. Bitcoin entered the tenth month of its fall from the October 2025 high during August, leading VanEck to place a possible accumulation period between September and November without selecting a specific date.
Bitcoin traded near $64,300 during Asian evening hours on Aug. 19 and had remained between roughly $62,300 and $66,500 since recovering from its June 30 low near $58,500. A recent price review found that BTC had failed to hold above $65,000 as resistance near $65,400, weak spot demand and rising U.S. bond yields limited its rebound.
Meanwhile, 30-day realized volatility had fallen to an annualized 27.2%, compared with Bitcoin’s long-run average of about 80%, according to VanEck. Low volatility has developed alongside reduced participation, with the firm placing 30-day spot volume in the 10th percentile of its recorded history after a 27% decline.
An Aug. 18 Bitcoin liquidity analysis also identified $63,200 as the median realized price that had supported BTC during repeated tests. Bitfinex analysts named $67,176 as the level that would return recent buyers to an average profit, while a loss of $63,200 could expose $57,803.
Miner stress has deepened during the selloff
Bitcoin miners have absorbed some of the heaviest pressure in the current cycle, according to VanEck, as lower prices and weak transaction fees have reduced the revenue produced by each unit of computing power.
Daily revenue across the mining network fell 46% from a year earlier, the report said. Mining difficulty also dropped 18.3% from its November 2025 peak as operators switched off machines that could no longer run profitably.
VanEck called the difficulty decline the steepest since China prohibited domestic Bitcoin mining in 2021. The reduction allows the network to adjust to falling computing power, but it also indicates that some miners have been unable to cover electricity and operating costs.
Crypto.news previously reported that a separate dataset placed the difficulty decline at 19.9% by late July, making it the third-deepest drop of the specialized mining-hardware era. That report also found that listed mining companies had expanded artificial-intelligence data-center agreements while Bitcoin mining income remained under pressure.
VanEck’s readings showed that miner stress has occurred alongside falling supply held by long-term investors. Coins untouched for more than one year declined by 356,534 BTC over 30 days to 11.84 million BTC, equal to 59.1% of circulating supply.
All six long-term age groups recorded reductions, according to the firm. Wallets holding coins for one to two years accounted for the largest decrease at about 156,000 BTC, while balances older than 10 years fell by roughly 4,000 BTC.
VanEck said some movements could represent transfers between private wallets for security reasons rather than sales. The firm added that exchange inflows separated by coin age would be needed to determine whether older holders sent the assets to trading platforms.
U.S. Bitcoin funds have reversed part of their outflows
Demand through U.S.-listed products moved in the opposite direction during VanEck’s 30-day measurement period. Spot Bitcoin exchange-traded products received about $663 million, equal to roughly 10,400 BTC at the prices used in the report.
The inflows reversed part of the approximately $2.4 billion withdrawn during the previous month, according to VanEck. American investors can access the market through the products, including VanEck’s HODL ETF, without holding Bitcoin directly.
Fund demand has remained uneven outside the report’s measurement window. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs lost $389.7 million during the week ending Aug. 14, according to data from SoSoValue.
Earlier in August, the funds had attracted $853.5 million across five consecutive sessions, as reported on Aug. 8. Farside data later showed $297.5 million of net inflows on Aug. 17 and another $189.3 million on Aug. 18, producing a combined two-day total of $486.8 million.
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