CryptoQuant analyst Axel Adler Jr. published a specific and consequential assessment on July 4: Bitcoin has entered the later stages of a bear market, and US spot ETFs are showing signs of easing selling pressure for the first time. Thursday's $223 million net inflow — the first daily total above $200 million since early May and the largest in over six weeks — is the specific data point that marks the first ETF signal consistent with the later-stage bear market transition Adler describes.
Bitcoin in the Later Stages — Not the End, but a Different Phase
Adler's characterization of Bitcoin as being in the later stages of a bear market is analytically distinct from declaring the bear market over. Later-stage bear markets are defined by exhaustion rather than panic — sellers gradually running out of willing sellers, patient capital absorbing available supply, and the macro environment beginning to shift from headwind to tailwind. All three conditions have been developing simultaneously in June and into July.
The on-chain evidence supporting Adler's later-stage assessment is dense. The realized profit and loss ratio has fallen to −0.35 — a 43-month low not seen since December 2022 following FTX's collapse, and a level that has marked cycle bottoms with extreme precision in 2015, 2019, and 2022 according to CryptoQuant's own analysis. Loss-making Bitcoin supply has overtaken profitable supply for the first time this cycle. The UTXO profit/loss ratio has entered the historical bottoming range. Cycle momentum sits at −30. The Sharpe ratio matched the −20 level seen at the 2015, 2018, and 2022 lows. Long-term holders control a record 79% of circulating supply. And whales absorbed 270,000 BTC — $16.7 billion — over two weeks while ETFs were bleeding a record $4.06 billion in June.
Each of these signals individually is consistent with a market in a later bear market phase. Together they represent the densest cluster of simultaneous historical bottom indicators Bitcoin has produced in the current cycle.
The First ETF Easing Signal — $223 Million Led by FBTC and ARKB
The ETF flow reversal is the new element in Adler's July 4 analysis. Thursday's $223 million in net inflows — led by Fidelity's FBTC at $166 million and ARK's ARKB at $91.8 million — ended a 10-day outflow streak that had totaled more than $2.7 billion and represented the worst stretch of institutional redemptions since the products launched in January 2024.
Adler characterizes this as the first sign of easing selling pressure rather than a confirmed reversal — a distinction that reflects the same caution embedded in every other analytical framework applied throughout the correction. One strong inflow day ends an outflow streak. It does not reverse six consecutive weeks of net redemptions totaling $4.06 billion in June alone. BlackRock's IBIT — the largest Bitcoin ETF and the product most closely associated with broad-based institutional re-engagement — continued its outflow streak on Thursday with $40.4 million in redemptions even as Fidelity and ARK posted their strongest single-day inflows in weeks.
The catalyst behind Thursday's inflow is identifiable and specific: June nonfarm payrolls at 57,000 — half the 110,000 forecast — pushed Fed rate-hike probability from 65% to 50% for September and gave institutional allocators who had been reducing Bitcoin ETF exposure throughout June a data-driven reason to begin reversing that positioning. The inflow is therefore a response to a specific macro catalyst rather than an unprompted return of institutional risk appetite — which is precisely why Adler frames it as a first sign of easing rather than a confirmed structural shift.
What Comes Next — the Remaining Conditions for Confirmation
The later-stage bear market framework and the first ETF easing signal define where Bitcoin is. The conditions that would confirm the transition from later-stage bear market to early-stage recovery are equally specific. The 200-week SMA at $62,660 must be reclaimed on a sustained weekly closing basis — Bitcoin ended the week at $61,600, just below that level. BlackRock's IBIT outflow streak must end and turn to positive inflows, confirming that institutional re-engagement is broad-based rather than concentrated in Fidelity and ARK's buyer profiles. And June CPI — the next major scheduled macro catalyst — must come in softer than May's 4.2% to validate the payrolls-driven rate repricing as the beginning of a sustained disinflationary shift rather than a single-week data anomaly.
Until those three conditions are met, Adler's later-stage bear market framing remains the most accurate single characterization of Bitcoin's current position: past the worst of it structurally, not yet confirmed as having exited it.
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