BTC Prices Still on Track For $140K This Year, But 2026 Will Be Painful, Elliot Wave Expert Says

Don’t name the highest but, market analyst specializing within the Elliott wave idea, instructed CoinDesk. He added that bitcoin

will rally to round $140,000 this yr earlier than slipping right into a bear market in 2026.

The main cryptocurrency by market worth, has dropped 4% over the previous week, with costs hitting lows underneath $112,000 over the weekend, in keeping with CoinDesk knowledge.

The decline comes after weeks of profit-taking by long-term holders close to $120,000 and alongside sharp losses in key crypto-related shares reminiscent of Strategy (MSTR) and Coinbase (COIN).

The sell-off is a typical retracement wave, representing a brief breather from the previous bullish impulse wave, and will set the stage for a rally to $140,000 by year-end, in keeping with John Glover, chief funding officer at crypto monetary providers firm Ledn.

“Firmly caught in the summer doldrums, the BTC price continues to follow the expected trajectory and will soon complete the 5-wave move depicted by the blue line [in the chart] below, which will finish wave iii (yellow line) of Wave 5 (orange line). All to say, we’re still on target to hit $135,000 – $140,000 by the end of 2025,” Glover mentioned in an e-mail.

What is the Elliott Wave?

The Elliott Wave Theory, launched by Ralph Nelson Elliott in 1938 in his ebook, “The Wave Principle, is a method of understanding market actions by recognizing that they comply with predictable, repeating patterns like pure fractals.

The core concept is that crowd psychology strikes in cycles, making a sample of 5 waves within the path of the first pattern or the impulse transfer. The five-wave construction encompasses three impulse waves (1,3, and 5) and two retracing waves (2 and 4). Sometimes, impulse waves are prolonged and highly effective, comprising their very own 5-wave construction.

A 3-wave corrective construction follows the five-wave construction. This 5-3 wave sample repeats at each bigger and smaller scales, permitting observers to forecast future value motion primarily based on the market’s present place throughout the broader context.

According to the above chart, BTC is currently moving in the impulse wave (iii) of the extended impulse wave 5.

The impulse wave (iii) could hit a high of $130,000 in the next couple of weeks, before prices drop to around $110,000 in September, completing the retrace wave (iv). After that, the final impulse wave (v) of the larger impulse wave 5 will resume, marking a bull market peak at around $140,000.

“Once we obtain the $140,000-ish area, there will probably be a LOT of debate as to how a lot additional the market will go, and I’m positive we’ll hear the bulls quoting $250,000 to $500,000 in 2026. This shouldn’t be my thesis as I consider we are going to enter a bear marketplace for BTC in 2026,” Glover said.

Glover’s take contrasts with the popular narrative that institutional adoption through ETFs has broken bitcoin’s four-year cycles, which historically indicate a price peak this year followed by an extended bear market.

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