After months of falling prices, weak rallies, and fading retail interest, crypto investors are asking the same question:

Is this still a crash or are we quietly near the bottom?

According to Bitwise Asset Management, the market may already be in the late stages of a full-scale crypto winter and history suggests recoveries often begin when sentiment feels the worst.

In other words, the pain investors feel today could actually signal that the cycle is closer to ending than starting.

A Bear Market Hiding in Plain Sight?

Bitwise argues the downturn didn’t begin recently it actually started back in January 2025, even if many traders didn’t recognize it at the time.

While headlines focused on ETF launches and institutional adoption, most of the market was already slipping.

The damage has been significant:

• Bitcoin (BTC) down ~39% from its 2025 peak
• Ethereum (ETH) down over 50%
• Many altcoins down 60–80%

That’s not a healthy pullback it’s classic winter behavior.

Yet because Bitcoin held up better than smaller tokens, many investors underestimated how deep the downturn really was.

Why Isn’t Good News Helping Prices?

Here’s what’s confusing traders.

Over the past year, crypto has seen:

• ETF approvals
• Institutional treasury buying
• Regulatory progress
• Growing adoption

Normally, those headlines push markets higher.

But Bitwise says true crypto winters don’t respond to good news.

At cycle lows, fundamentals often stop mattering.

Instead, markets are driven by:

• exhaustion
• apathy
• low volume
• constant small selloffs

Sound familiar?

That emotional “nothing works” phase has historically marked late-stage bear markets, not early ones.

The ETF Effect That Masked the Pain

One twist this cycle: institutions stepped in heavily.

Bitwise estimates ETFs and treasury vehicles absorbed 740,000+ BTC, injecting billions of dollars into large-cap assets.

That created two different markets:

What investors saw:

Bitcoin holding relatively steady

What actually happened:

Retail tokens collapsing quietly

So while BTC looked stable, much of crypto was already deep in capitulation.

Bitwise calls this a “hidden winter.”

How Crypto Winters Usually End (Hint: It’s Not Dramatic)

If you’re waiting for a big bullish headline to signal the bottom, history suggests you might miss it.

Past winters 2018 and 2022 ended not with excitement, but with:

✅ boredom
✅ low trading activity
✅ sellers exhausted
✅ slow stabilization

Then suddenly… prices start climbing when no one expects it.

By the time optimism returns, much of the upside is already gone.

So… Are We Near the End?

Historically, crypto winters last about 12–13 months peak to trough.

If this cycle began in early 2025, the timeline suggests we may already be entering the final stretch.

That doesn’t mean:
❌ instant rallies
❌ new highs tomorrow

But it could mean:
✅ selling pressure fading
✅ risk improving gradually
✅ early accumulation opportunities forming

And that’s exactly how recoveries tend to start.

Quietly.

Final Take

Crypto doesn’t feel good right now and that might be the point.

When markets feel hopeless, when rallies fail, and when most traders lose interest, history shows those moments often come closest to the bottom.

Bitwise’s message isn’t that the bull market is back.

It’s simpler:

Winter may already be thawing even if no one notices yet.