Bitcoin has never posted back-to-back losing years, but 2026 could become the first time in its history that it does. In a Chart of the Day segment, BMTV examined Bitcoin's yearly candles: 2025 closed down roughly 6%, marking the first red year immediately after a halving, and 2026 is currently down about 16% with seven weeks remaining in the year.

Halvings — the protocol events that cut Bitcoin's rate of new supply roughly every four years — have long served as reference points for how market observers frame its cycles, which is part of why a red candle directly after one is drawing so much discussion.

To finish 2026 in the green, Bitcoin would need to climb back above $87,500 — a rally of approximately 18% from current levels. That threshold now functions as the concrete line to watch into year-end: a finish above it would keep the record of never posting consecutive down years intact, while a close below it would mark the first back-to-back annual declines in Bitcoin's history.

Sean Hagan says the timeline is full of panic hands treating the two red candles as proof that Bitcoin is struggling, and he wanted to look at the actual data. The numbers, he argues, may tell a different story.

The segment walks through the data behind those two annual candles. It examines how the ETFs — U.S. spot bitcoin funds that began trading in January 2024 — pulled the whole rally forward, why 2021 had a cushion that 2025 did not, and why year two isn't the difference — year one is. It also finds that this bear market has been shorter and shallower, and that even a red 2026 would be the mildest post-top year.

On the probability side, the segment notes that an 18% rally comes roughly one in eight times, and closes with the argument that the headline sounds worse than what is actually happening — and that this is a better, more mature, stronger Bitcoin.

The full video is available on YouTube: Bitcoin Faces Two Red Years For the First Time Ever.

This article first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

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