Bitcoin Rally Paused Until July 2026, Analyst Says

Crypto analyst Dr Cat (@DoctorCatX) has suggested that Bitcoin's anticipated 2024-25 rally may have hit a pause, potentially delaying the next significant breakout until mid-July or even as late as the first quarter of 2026. According to Dr Cat, the market has printed a "valid cycle high" on the weekly chart and has entered a neutral phase, which could postpone the next decisive move.

Dr Cat emphasized that the weekly timeframe has lost its bullish bias due to the Chiko Span (CS) entering the candles, although the long-term monthly structure remains bullish. This means that while the overall trend is still positive, the immediate path higher is narrowed to two clear windows. The first window opens in the week beginning June 16. If Bitcoin starts that week above $99,881 and closes with CS breaking cleanly above the candle range, Dr Cat believes a significant rally, potentially to $270,000, could ignite. However, if the price opens below that threshold, a textbook CS tracing pattern would already be underway, pushing the next breakout target to the week commencing July 14 or the one immediately after.

Below $93,200—the current position of the weekly Kijun Sen—the bullish countdown is voided. Dr Cat warned that if the Kijun Sen at $93,200 is lost, a much later breakout is considered, pointing traders to a broad monthly window between November 2025 and April 2026 when the Kijun Sen itself is expected to slope upward again. Until then, Dr Cat is not confident that the bottom is in, flagging $97–98 K as a short-term confluence zone in which the daily Kumo cloud, the weekly Tenkan Sen, and the two-day Kijun Sen intersect.

The analysis comes at a delicate moment for sentiment. Bitcoin’s April all-time high above $111,999 has so far resisted several retests, and funding rates on major derivatives venues have eased from euphoric to merely positive. For Dr Cat, such moderation is consistent with Ichimoku’s Kihon Suchi 17-period rhythm, implying that a fresh consolidation phase is statistically favored.

Altcoins face an even steeper uphill battle. Dr Cat argued that altcoins are not ready to pump on the weekly and need a minimum of 1-2 months for that in the most bullish scenario. He cited four overlapping bearish ingredients: price below the weekly Kijun Sen, a negative Tenkan–Kijun cross, a Chiko Span trapped beneath the candle “forest,” and a Kijun Sen poised to turn down next week. The chance for a bullish altcoins explosion in June is around 5%, he concluded, assigning a roughly equal probability that Bitcoin alone could rally while “dominance destroys alts.”

That dour appraisal extends to Ethereum and other large caps. In Dr Cat’s view, blindness applies to anyone expecting a parabolic bull run above ATH in June for TOTAL3. The first legitimate “window of opportunity for altcoin bulls,” he adds, does not open until August, when the weekly CS will encounter a thinner overhang of historic candles.

Market implications hinge on whether Bitcoin can defend its higher-timeframe pivots long enough to align with those temporal windows. So far, the $93,200 Kijun Sen serves as the demarcation line between an orderly pause and a deeper retracement. A weekly close beneath it would “activate” the November-to-April contingency track—effectively pushing any move toward Dr Cat’s headline $270,000 projection into the next halving cycle.