Crypto Long & Short: Six signs a crypto winter is ending

Denny Galindo of Morgan Stanley Wealth Management laid out six historical signals that have tended to mark the transition from a prolonged crypto bear market to a nascent recovery, a phase he calls “crypto spring.” In past four-year cycles, crypto winters lasted about 12–14 months after roughly three years of bull market behavior; spring typically begins quietly, with price stabilization while broad public interest remains muted. Galindo cautions these signs are not predictions but are worth monitoring. The six markers include cycle timing relative to the supply halving, exchange and institutional stress events, the depth of drawdowns from prior peaks, changes in bitcoin mining difficulty, the thermocap multiple, and specific price action patterns such as a 50% rally off the low. Several of those markers are showing some alignment now: September is noted as 17 months before the next halving and 11 months from the prior peak; major exchange distress recently occurred when BitMEX announced in July it would close in September; and bitcoin has experienced a 53% drop per Bloomberg data covering Oct. 6, 2025 to June 30, 2026. By contrast, mining difficulty has fallen but not yet bounced back, and the thermocap multiple only declined to 13x on June 30, 2026—higher than the single-digit troughs seen in prior cycles. Galindo also highlights two debates likely to shape the coming cycle: whether bitcoin will top its prior cycle high before the next halving and whether AI has replaced crypto as the market’s primary speculative narrative. Historical behavior varied: in the 2012–2016 and 2016–2020 cycles bitcoin did not exceed the prior cycle high until after the halving, while in the 2024 cycle bitcoin surpassed its 2021 high one month before the April 2024 halving. Separately, market attention has shifted toward AI since 2024, complicating comparisons with earlier crypto-led speculative episodes. The newsletter’s weekly roundup also flagged several current headlines institutional investors should watch. Bitcoin’s daily chart recently formed a golden cross, a technical pattern some interpret as signaling a longer-term bullish shift. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong told CNBC the industry stands to gain regulatory clarity regardless of the Senate vote on the Clarity Act slated for Sept. 15. India’s Maharashtra state is drafting a policy to tokenize assets—including electricity transmission infrastructure—to raise capital for projects. In chart coverage, Pump.fun’s new custom pools allowed memecoins to be paired against non-SOL tokens; daily volume spiked past $500 million on Sept. 10 before settling into a roughly $390 million–$450 million range.