Bitcoin ($BTC) has shed roughly half its value since hitting a record above $126,000 last October, leaving it near $64,000 today. The case for a recovery over the next three years is built on concrete catalysts, but each one carries a condition the market has not yet met.
What drove the run to record highs
Three years ago, Bitcoin traded around $29,000. In January 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission approved the first spot-price Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, opening a direct path for retail and institutional investors who had previously needed crypto wallets to gain exposure. In April 2024, the protocol's scheduled halving cut mining rewards in half at a moment when more than 20 million of the maximum 21 million tokens had already been mined. The Federal Reserve, which had raised its benchmark rate 11 consecutive times across 2022 and 2023, then cut rates three times in 2024. Three more cuts in 2025, combined with the Trump administration's crypto-friendly posture, carried Bitcoin to its all-time high.
The line to watch now
The read-through from 2026 is harder. Inflation reaccelerated, the Fed held rates unchanged, and the macro backdrop pushed investors toward more conservative positions. The CLARITY Act, which would provide a regulatory framework for digital assets and attract institutional capital, remains stalled in the Senate. Without that legislation, a significant portion of institutional buyers stays on the sideline.
The counterargument: scarcity and the 2028 halving
The counterargument, and it deserves its own accounting, is that Bitcoin's supply mechanics did not change with the price. More than 20 million tokens mined against a hard cap of 21 million means new supply is nearly exhausted. The next halving, scheduled for 2028, is expected to push prices higher ahead of the event. If the Fed pivots back to cuts as inflation cools, the monetary-easing tailwind that drove the 2024 to 2025 rally could return. The broader thesis, that institutional, corporate, and government buyers will increasingly treat Bitcoin as a hedge against expansionary monetary policy, does not expire with a single rate pause.
On balance, the three-year bull case requires some combination of Congressional action on crypto regulation, a Fed pivot, or evidence that the "digital gold" framing is drawing a wider institutional base. As of today, the CLARITY Act is stalled, the Fed is on hold, and Bitcoin trades at roughly half its record high.