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Bitcoin’s downtrend may end within 12 months, says Altcoin Sherpa

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Bitcoin’s downtrend may end within 12 months, says Altcoin Sherpa

Altcoin Sherpa says Bitcoin’s bear phase could end within 12 months as ETFs, macro risks and a possible capitulation shape the next accumulation zone.

Bitcoin market analyst Altcoin Sherpa has projected the current cryptocurrency bear phase will conclude in less than 365 days, with the digital asset potentially resuming its broader uptrend before year-end, according to analysis published on social media platform X.

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The projection comes as Bitcoin trades well below its all-time high reached in October, prompting investor questions about when the cryptocurrency might establish its next bottom.

Sherpa specified the timeline refers to the move from peak to bottom and does not include the accumulation period that typically follows, according to the analysis. The accumulation phase is characterized by sideways price action with relatively low volatility and subdued trading volume, historically lasting between two and four months.

Historical data shows Bitcoin experienced major rallies in 2017 and 2021, each followed by year-long declines in 2018 and 2022, according to the analyst. Extended accumulation periods followed those drawdowns in 2019 and 2020. From peak to bottom in both the 2017-2018 and 2021-2022 cycles, Bitcoin required approximately one year to complete its downward move.

Past bear markets have featured a final capitulation event—a sharp sell-off marking the end of the downtrend, according to Sherpa’s analysis. The analyst indicated a capitulation may have already occurred earlier this year, pointing to a substantial price drop as a potential final decline. If correct, the market could already be in early accumulation stages.

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Sherpa stated the current decline will differ from previous patterns due to structural changes in the market. The analyst cited the growing role of US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, which have altered capital flow structures despite declining alongside the broader market. An extended consolidation period of approximately eight months in a prior price range was also noted, with such trading ranges often acting as support zones during pullbacks from a technical analysis perspective.

Broader macroeconomic factors including equities, metals, overall risk appetite and artificial intelligence developments remain critical variables, according to the analysis. Sherpa stated Bitcoin does not require another seven months of decline to form a bottom, suggesting accumulation may already be underway if the recent slide was the final capitulation.

The analyst acknowledged one key risk to the outlook: the possibility that a final capitulation has not yet occurred. If another significant sell-off emerges, that would be interpreted as the definitive bottoming event, with accumulation likely following for several months, according to the analysis.

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Crypto World

Starknet Taps EY’s Nightfall for Institutional Privacy on Ethereum Rails

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Ethereum, Privacy, DeFi, zk-STARK, Institutions

Starknet developer StarkWare has integrated EY’s Nightfall privacy protocol to let institutions run private payments and decentralized finance (DeFi) activity on public Ethereum-aligned rails, targeting banks and corporates that need confidentiality without giving up auditability. 

In a Tuesday release shared with Cointelegraph, StarkWare positioned the move as a way for enterprises to use a shared, open layer-2 rather than closed, bank-only networks, while working with a Big Four firm that already audits many of the organizations it wants to onboard.

The integration brings Nightfall, an open-source zero-knowledge (ZK) privacy layer built by EY, that lets transactions be verified without revealing underlying data, onto Starknet to enable private B2B and cross-border payments, confidential treasury management and 24/7 tokenized asset transfers onchain.

StarkWare said that institutions will also be able to access Ethereum DeFi for activities such as lending, swaps and yield strategies, with transactions private by default but supporting selective disclosure, auditability and Know Your Customer (KYC) protocols.

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Related: Arbitrum, Optimism and Base weigh in after Vitalik questions L2 scaling model

Starknet and Nightfall target institutional flows

StarkWare frames this as a “major breakthrough” in making public blockchains usable for institutional capital that has so far been deterred by full onchain transparency and the resulting compliance and competitive risks.

Eli Ben-Sasson, StarkWare co-founder and CEO and a founding scientist of privacy-focused cryptocurrency Zcash (ZEC), said in the release that blockchains could give every institution “the equivalent of a private superhighway for stablecoins and tokenized deposits,” positioning Nightfall on Starknet as a concrete step toward that vision. 

Alex Gruell, StarkWare’s global head of business development, told Cointelegraph that Nightfall was “particularly useful for institutions requiring ready-to-go KYC verification as part of their onboarding to the blockchain,” and part of a broader privacy push on Starknet.

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Ethereum, Privacy, DeFi, zk-STARK, Institutions
Alex Gruell, global head of business development. Source: StarkWare

He said that while crypto native teams had “moved mountains” building ZK infrastructure, the EY-built system added a complementary layer of institutional credibility and “regulatory fluency.”

Related: Vitalik Buterin tempers vision for ETH L2s, pushes native rollups

Gruell also cast Starknet plus Nightfall as an interoperability layer between institutions, contrasting it with what he claimed are “siloed” institutional environments on rival networks, which he said “do not serve as an interoperability infrastructure,” and permissioned models such as Canton Network, which are “not yet integrated with the Web3 ecosystem.”

He stressed that Nightfall would remain permissionless and fully integrated into Starknet, with a staged rollout, where initial deployment focused on “private payments and transfers with compliance gating and secure sequencing in place,” while “verifier upgrades and expanded functionality follow as the system scales.”

Starknet’s growth and teething trouble

Starknet has steadily grown into one of the larger ZK rollups by total value locked (TVL), currently about $280 million, with usage primarily driven by DeFi protocols and native ecosystem apps. 

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At the same time, Starknet’s rapid scaling push has exposed reliability challenges. In 2025, the network suffered major outages tied to sequencer and infrastructure issues, prompting public post-mortems and commitments to harden reliability before courting more institutional flow. 

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