VanEck Analyst: This Round of Bitcoin Plunge Had No Single Catalyst, Predicting Market Bottom Will Be More Challenging

BlockBeats News, February 7th - Matthew Sigel, Director of Digital Assets Research at VanEck, stated that unlike previous sharp price drops that had clear triggers, this round of sell-off did not have a single catalyst. This has made it more difficult to assess the market bottom, but it may also create clearer conditions for recovery. Factors that led to Bitcoin dropping to $60,000 on Thursday include leverage unwinding, miners being forced to sell, the AI hype fading, quantum computing threats, and the typical four-year bull-bear cycle pattern where Bitcoin investors anticipate and subsequently sell off.

Massive Deleveraging: Open interest in futures contracts reached a peak of $90 billion in early October, but has now plummeted from about $61 billion a week ago to around $49 billion, indicating that the market has reduced over 45% of its peak leverage.

AI Hype Fading: Investors are beginning to question whether companies like OpenAI and cloud service providers can truly profit from massive infrastructure investments. As the return on investments of hundreds of billions in infrastructure remains uncertain and the commercialization path is unclear, this questioning sentiment has severely affected Bitcoin miners.

Quantum Computing Threat Heating Up: Interest in this topic has increased among investors, and discussions on developers and community forums have become more active, although many Bitcoin core developers are still downplaying the urgency of the risk.

Four-Year Cycle Psychological Impact: Bitcoin follows a strict yet unofficial cycle rhythm every four years: the halving event reduces new coin issuance, typically driving up prices; then investors take profits, and the market shifts to a bear market. "The four-year cycle narrative remains a significant reference point in investor psychology."