Bitcoin is heading toward its second consecutive losing calendar year, a first in the cryptocurrency's 18-year trading history. The asset fell 6.34% in 2025 and has declined a further 15.65% in 2026, trading near $74,107 on November 11.
To avoid back-to-back annual declines, Bitcoin would need to climb above its 2026 opening price of roughly $87,500 before December 31. At the November 11 level, that requires a gain of about 17.6%, with roughly 50 days left in the year.
An 18-year pattern at risk
Historical data shows that every negative calendar year for Bitcoin has been followed by a positive one. Even the 2018 and 2022 bear markets did not produce consecutive annual declines, a pattern that has held since the cryptocurrency launched.
A close below $87,500 on December 31 would end that record and make the two-year streak official. A third consecutive decline in 2027 would extend the streak further, though that scenario remains hypothetical at this stage.
Two red years remain mild by comparison
After compounding, the combined decline across 2025 and 2026 comes to roughly 21%. That is far smaller than Bitcoin's 73.56% plunge in 2018 or its 64.27% drop in 2022, both of which erased most of investors' holdings in a single year.
The 2024 performance adds context: Bitcoin surged more than 120% that year, meaning investors who bought at the start of 2024 would still hold substantial gains despite the decline since then.
Past rebounds have also followed deep losses. Bitcoin gained roughly 92% in 2019 after the 2018 collapse, and rose more than 155% in 2023 following the 2022 downturn. Each rebound arrived in the year immediately after the crash.
Peak-to-trough losses tell a different story
Measured from the market peak, the drawdown is more severe. Bitcoin reached about $126,000 in October 2025 before falling below $58,000 during 2026, a decline of more than 50%, according to TradingView price data.
That figure is far larger than the roughly 21% combined loss reflected in the two annual candlesticks, which capture only the movement between each January and December. Streak length and loss severity can therefore diverge: a market can decline slowly across several years without a single catastrophic year.
Analysts point to institutional investors, spot exchange-traded funds and deeper liquidity as factors that may explain the smaller bear-market drawdowns. Those forces, however, have not eliminated major price crashes, leaving the current cycle looking different from earlier ones.
