CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju Sees Bitcoin (BTC) New Cycle With 3-5x Gains

Ki Young Ju Calls the Turn

CryptoQuant founder and CEO Ki Young Ju says the bear market in Bitcoin (BTC) ended this summer and the market has entered the early stage of a new cycle. The call arrived in a long-form video interview published Sunday, and it carries the number drawing most attention: he expects this cycle to return 3-5x from the cycle low rather than the 10x parabolic moves and 80% crashes of earlier eras. The Bitcoin (BTC) price has not settled the debate on its own, because Ju's case rests on on-chain behavior rather than the tape. Three shifts anchor the argument. Fresh capital is entering the market again, tracked through Realized Cap, which values each coin at the price of its last on-chain transfer. Selling from OG whales, the long-standing whales who had spent prior months booking profits, is fading. And in futures, large accounts have built sizeable long positions near the bottom, per his reading of positioning data. Ju weights that combination heavily: new money in, old holders stepping back, big accounts re-entering. The 3-5x range follows from market maturity. MVRV, the ratio of market cap to Realized Cap that gauges unrealized profit across all holders, peaked above 5 in 2013-14, in the 4s in 2017-18 and around 4 in 2021, while the most recent cycle topped out near the mid-2s. Downside extremes have softened as well, with fewer periods of deep unrealized loss than past bear phases produced. His conclusion is that extreme swings, on the way up and on the way down, are moderating as the Bitcoin (BTC) market matures. Readers who prefer a visual cycle gauge can follow the Bitcoin Rainbow Chart framework, which encodes the same overheating logic.

A New Set of Buyers

A second thread in Ju's argument concerns who is doing the buying. He describes a prolonged change of hands: capital kept arriving even while price stalled, because new demand absorbed the supply that early holders were unloading. The CryptoQuant PnL Index, which combines SOPR-based profit and loss measures across short- and long-term holders into one reading, is turning at several points at once; Ju reads that as a bull run only beginning, while noting the 365-day moving average of the index has not yet confirmed an uptrend by itself. On ETFs his position is measured. Spot ETF flows have improved, and the average ETF investor's cost basis sits in the $80,000s, so the recovery has returned that cohort to unrealized profit. Separate tracking showed ETFs opened October with net inflows of $134.4 million. Ju still cautions that flow data alone cannot say why ETF buyers are buying, which is why he leans on on-chain detail. Inflows to accumulation addresses, wallets whose balances only grow, have climbed since late 2025 and stayed elevated through 2026, with a recent spike and a rising 30-day average. His next focus is custodial flows. Retail historically bought through exchanges, while institutions acquire coins via prime services, market makers and OTC desks, then move coins into custody wallets, so watching those transfers reveals which investor class is active without naming anyone. Wallet activity tied to US custody services has picked up, he noted. The old whales-versus-retail model is fading, and Ju adds that the four-year rhythm still matters on the supply side, because each halving resets mining economics.

What Was Actually Asked

COINOTAG's view: the load-bearing record here is not the forecast but the data behind it. The PnL Index and the accumulation-address series are CryptoQuant's published on-chain records, and they do show rising inflows and simultaneous inflections across several metrics. Whether those inflections compose a new bull phase is interpretation, and our Bitcoin technical analysis desk treats the price side as unconfirmed until levels break. The 3-5x figure is also a product of framing: an open interview about where the market stands invites a scenario, not a measurement, and the exact wording of the question behind the number is not on the record. We will test the call against the next round of flow data.