Bitcoin is on track for its first two consecutive negative calendar years. The combined loss is far smaller than its worst crashes, but the drop from its 2025 peak is much deeper.
Bitcoin finished 2025 down 6.34% and has lost another 15.65% so far in 2026, trading around $73,850 on November 10. If it fails to recover above its annual opening price of roughly $87,500 before December 31, it will close two calendar years in the red for the first time in its 18-year history.
Bitcoin would need to gain about 18.5% from that price to finish 2026 in positive territory, and it has 50 days left to do it.
Past losing years never came in pairs
Historical annual returns show that each negative calendar year has been followed by a positive one. Even the 2018 and 2022 bear markets failed to produce consecutive annual losses.
Those years also hit harder. Bitcoin plunged 73.56% in 2018 and 64.27% in 2022, while the 2025 decline and this year's roughly 16% loss add up to approximately 21% after compounding.
Rebounds followed both crashes. Bitcoin gained roughly 92% in 2019 and more than 155% in 2023. It also surged more than 120% in 2024, so investors who bought at the start of that year would still sit on substantial gains.
The peak-to-trough drop looks worse
Measured from the market's actual peak, the picture changes. Bitcoin reached approximately $126,000 in October 2025 before crashing below $58,000 during 2026, a decline exceeding 50%.
Analysts have pointed to Bitcoin's increasingly institutional investor base, spot exchange-traded funds, and deeper market liquidity as potential explanations for comparatively smaller drawdowns. Those structural changes have not eliminated major price crashes, however.
A long losing streak also differs from a severe one. A market can decline slowly over several calendar years without the damage of a single catastrophic year, and a third consecutive decline in 2027 remains hypothetical.
Source: Decrypt
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