Bitcoin's gains in the current bull market could be limited to about 3 to 5 times, rather than more than 10 times as in past cycles, a forecast said. CoinPost, a blockchain media outlet, reported on Sept. 23 that CryptoQuant founder and CEO Ju Ki-young (주기영) expects a milder bear market to follow later in this cycle.

In a post on X, Ju said the market structure has changed from the past. When bitcoin's market was smaller and dominated by retail investors, short-term speculative money drove both sharp rallies and drops of about 80 percent, he wrote. He said extreme volatility in both directions is now easing as the market has grown and institutional holdings have increased.

He also cited on-chain indicators. He analysed the PnL index, which tracks the overall profit and loss status of holders, and said peaks are not as extreme as in the past and bottoms are forming at relatively high levels of holder profitability.

He also pointed to the MVRV indicator as a basis for the view. MVRV is calculated by dividing market capitalisation by realised market capitalisation, and a reading below 1 means holders on average have moved into unrealised loss. Ju said MVRV has not fallen below 1 even once in this cycle. That means bitcoin's price, even at the bottom, stayed above the on-chain average purchase price, so while some investors took losses, holders as a whole did not fall into unrealised loss.

He also mentioned inflows and moves by large investors. He interpreted an increase in realised market capitalisation as a signal of fresh inflows. Existing whale investors have stopped selling, and whale traders in the futures market built large long positions near the bottom, he added. He said the 365-day moving average of the PnL index, which tends to lag at turning points, has recently been creating a meaningful inflection point.

Ju said this does not mean there is now a cap on bitcoin's upside. What has changed is the structure of the trade-off, he said, with fewer parabolic 10-fold rallies also lowering the odds of an 80 percent plunge. He added that this trend is drawing long-term money rather than speculative funds, and mentioned the possibility that bitcoin is approaching a stable asset closer to a real currency envisioned by Satoshi Nakamoto.