Bitcoin Bulls Face an $87,500 Retest and Long-Term Short Signals

Bitcoin (BTC) faces a new “battle” for control before bulls trigger the next round of BTC price gains, but the long-term outlook is grim.

Key points:

• Bitcoin short-term and long-term perspectives contrast as bears stay in control on high timeframes.

• A golden cross on the day chart does not cancel out short signals for the rest of the year.

• A new all-time high is “not likely” as a result.

$87,500 retest next stop for BTC price

In his latest X analysis on Wednesday, Keith Alan, cofounder of trading resource Material Indicators, forecast a retest of the 2026 yearly open.

Bitcoin price action is now caught in a tussle between buyers and sellers, but a return to $87,500 is “not a matter of if, but when,” Alan said.

Pointing to Material Indicators’ proprietary trading tools, he showed that bulls are trying to preserve support at $92,000.

“FireCharts shows a realtime battle unfolding in the $BTC order book,” he said.

That cross involves the 21-day and 50-day simple moving averages (SMAs). The former crossing above the latter would indicate renewed strength on lower timeframes.

Before that, however, a support retest of the yearly open is on the wall.

“The battle for it is happening right now,” Alan said, adding:

Bitcoin, Ether at “critical inflection points”

Zooming out, other findings had little inspiration for Bitcoin optimists on multimonth timeframes and further out.

Related: Bitcoin buying metric with average 109% gains flips positive at $88K

Multiple “short” signals, trading tools showed, mean that BTC/USD is unlikely to make new all-time highs before 2027.

“A lot can happen in 6 months that could invalidate it, but at the moment, it’s easy to build a case for price to drop after this current pump loses momentum,” Alan wrote about the six-month chart.

The research held similar conclusions about largest altcoin Ether (ETH), describing both coins as being “at critical inflection points.”

For a true turnaround, one-week relative strength index (RSI) values above 41/100, along with weekly closes above the 50-week SMA at $101,500, are needed.

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