Bitcoin's rally toward $86,000 on Sept. 21 has prompted several analysts to argue that the current upswing may extend further, with targets ranging from $88,000 to as high as $370,000 if historical cycle patterns repeat.
Analyst Doctor Profit said Bitcoin is mirroring the 2022-2023 structure. The 50-week simple moving average was near $78,700. After BTC spent three to four weeks facing rejections around that level, it underwent a shakeout that many interpreted as another bearish breakdown. Instead, Bitcoin recovered and broke back above the moving average, trading around $85,000 to $86,000 during the session. A weekly close above the moving average, Doctor Profit said, would strengthen the bullish case and put $88,000 as the next target once remaining resistance is cleared.
Doctor Profit also noted that Bitcoin has broken below and then reclaimed the 50-week moving average seven times historically. Five of those reclaims led to bull markets, while two were false signals: one in 2011, when Bitcoin had very limited liquidity, and one during the 2020 COVID-19 crash. He called the recent bear trap another similarity to 2022-2023, citing the same rejections, shakeout, and recovery above the moving average.
Another market commentator, Crypto Patel, pointed to a cycle-timing pattern based on 364-day gaps between peaks and bottoms in the 2017-2018 and 2021-2022 cycles. He suggested the 2025-peak-to-2026-bottom path may be following that same timing. If confirmed by price action, the next major expansion could target $370,000.
Analyst James Lavish took a similarly bullish view, arguing that Bitcoin's 2021-2025 bear market was unusually deep and prolonged because of collapses such as FTX and Celsius and related fraud cases. He believes Bitcoin's current cycle is comparable to 2019-2021. Unless a major external disruption hits broader markets, Lavish said Bitcoin could approach its all-time highs again within the next 60 to 120 days.
