K33 sees ‘uncanny’ similarities in price action, but less likelihood of a -80% drop; meanwhile, Ethereum treasury and DeFi prime brokerage change the rules.
Bitcoin ‘s 40 per cent drop from its October highs has reopened a drawer the market likes to keep close at hand: the ‘four-year cycle’, with its liturgy of euphoria, distribution and volume desertification. K33, a research and brokerage firm, does not deny that the intonation of the latest sell-off has something familiar, indeed: head of research Vetle Lunde speaks of ‘uncanny similarities’ with the deep sell-offs of 2018 and 2022, where market behaviour tends to matter more than fundamentals in the short term. The point, however, is that today’s fear of the cycle can itself become a catalyst, because if long term holders reduce exposure and new capital is put on hold, the downward pressure is self-feeding even in the presence of favourable winds on the regulatory and macro fronts.
Yet in K33’s reading, ‘this time it’s different’ is not just an end-of-bull market slogan. Lunde does not expect an 80% peak-to-trough collapse as in previous cycles, citing a more institutional environment, an easing rate environment and, most importantly, the absence of those forced deleveraging events that turned a correction into a systemic liquidation in 2022. Potential low signals also appear on the table, such as a day of spot volumes in the 90th percentile area and “extremely negative” derivative positioning after long liquidations in the billions, but with a premise that weighs more than the numbers: they are not yet definitive proof. This is why K33 sets a precise geography of levels: 74,000 as critical support, below which momentum could accelerate towards 69,000 (November 2021 peak) and, deeper down, towards the 200-week moving average around 58,000.
This same theme, the difference between ‘chart’ and ‘structure’ losses, also emerges on the Ethereum front, where corporate finance is experimenting with increasingly aggressive treasury models. Tom Lee, president of BitMine, dismissed the idea that the company’s unrealised losses in ETH (around $6.6 billion) would turn the company into a future ‘exit liquidity’, arguing that mark-to-market volatility is intrinsic to a treasury strategy designed to traverse an entire cycle and not market timing. His formula, ‘a feature, not a bug’, is deliberately provocative: just as an index ETF goes down when the market goes down, so a vehicle that replicates (and attempts to outperform) ETH must accept temporary drawdowns without automatically turning them into selling pressure. Proponents add a relevant financial-technical detail: mNAV dynamics can act as a natural switch, limiting dilutive issuance in downturns and preserving capital for subsequent cycles, reducing the incentive to dump ETH at the worst possible time.
If anyone thinks DeFi remains a separate playground, Ripple ‘s latest move is an institutional reality check. Ripple has integrated Hyperliquid into Ripple Prime, linking its prime brokerage platform to a DeFi venue for the first time and allowing institutional clients to manage on-chain derivatives alongside centralised exchange exposures and even assets such as FX and fixed income, within a unified risk and margin framework. Ripple Prime remains the counterparty between client and Hyperliquid, i.e. it offers access to DeFi without fragmenting the prime brokerage relationship and counterparty risk, a move that ‘normalises’ the on-chain in the language of traditional trading venues. The platform stems from Ripple’s acquisition of Hidden Road for $1.25 billion and is backed by a base that reportedly serves over 300 institutional clients and handles over $3 trillion annually.
Put together, this picture tells of a market that may still scare as it did in 2018, but is building new pipelines in 2026: ‘crypto-native’ treasuries and prime brokers bringing DeFi into risk management dashboards. And when the structure changes, even old cycles stop being laws of physics and go back to being what they have always been: collective psychology disguised as destiny.
