Ki Young Ju, founder and CEO of CryptoQuant, estimated that investors would be down roughly four-fifths on average if Bitcoin (BTC) fell to $10,000, a level he said would require an extreme shock.
In an interview with Cointelegraph on Oct. 21, Ju said August’s capitulation marked the end of Bitcoin’s bear phase in his view. He now expects a steadier advance. Spot and perpetual futures markets had recorded positive net demand for about two months, he said, the first sustained overlap of that kind since the October 2025 peak.
Ju placed Bitcoin’s aggregate realized price near $54,000, against a market price around $80,000. He said the gap kept MVRV — a comparison of market value with realized value — above 1 during this cycle, leaving holders profitable on average. At $10,000, he estimated, the ratio would fall to about 0.2, beneath the historical lows of roughly 0.5 to 0.6 he cited.
Ju said Bitcoin’s low during the 2022 FTX collapse was close to its realized price. A world war or a serious Bitcoin security flaw could create the shock needed for a $10,000 price, he said, but that outcome would also require considerable selling by investors who bought around 2019. He judged that kind of selling unlikely based on holder behavior.
Bitcoin’s larger market and deeper institutional involvement make a rally exceeding 10 times a cycle bottom harder to achieve, Ju said. In his estimate, a further $1 trillion to $2 trillion in inflows would be consistent with a gain limited to between three and five times the cycle low.
Ju said a return of exchange-traded fund inflows and buying by older large holders, who also added long positions in perpetual futures, prompted him to revise his outlook. Ju said long-standing holders had sold 1.24 million BTC and that demand from Strategy and spot Bitcoin ETFs had absorbed the selling. He expects Bitcoin to take on more characteristics of gold as a larger share of supply goes to investors with longer horizons, with lower returns in future cycles.
Ju’s outlook for a slower rise follows Saylor’s earlier call for a new bull run.
