Bear or Bull? Finding Clarity in the Chaos

A beginner-friendly breakdown of macro trends, expert opinions, and why none of it matters without a plan.

SMooTH

Posted on Apr 11, 2025

I’m not a morning person.

Every day starts with a battle, and my bed wins a few rounds before my goals even land a punch.

It lures me in with comfort and a false sense of belonging.

“Five more minutes won’t hurt.” 🥱

So, in my quest for a better wake-up call, I found something unexpected: crypto Twitter.

Every morning, it slaps me awake with a fresh “wtf?” headline. Crashing markets, tariffs on penguins, [insert today’s weird narrative].

Pure chaos. But it works.

Markets are kinda like that too. When prices pump, we never want to sell. When they crash, we panic and want out.

Both ends of the spectrum mess with our heads, whispering: “You belong here.”

So what’s the wake-up call we need? What snaps us out of the illusion and gives us that rare moment of clarity?

Is this a bull market? A bear market? Something in between? How can we even tell?

In search of the answer, I turned to the experts.

What do the experts think?

If there’s one thing I’ve learned to dodge when looking for expert opinions, it’s the chaos of Crypto Twitter. It’s more noise than signal—and as I said recently:

Source: my totally-not-worthless opinion

Now that I’ve finished screenshotting my own tweets for validation, let’s take a peek at what actual experts are saying.

In an attempt to deliver the most unbiased, level-headed macro view possible (and not spend the better part of a day doing so), I’ve asked AI to help me with the research. One hour of filtering, fine-tuning, and cross-checking later, we’ve got a pretty clear sense of where the smarter minds in the room are leaning.

Let’s start by lining up a few conflicting opinions—because in crypto, everyone’s an expert until the chart flips.

Expert/Source	Short-Term View	Long-Term View	Price Prediction for 2025 (BTC)	Prediction Date	Source Link
Arthur Hayes	Bullish	Bullish	Not specified	April 7-10, 2025	X Posts
Citi Research	Cautiously optimistic	Potential for growth	Not specified	December 25, 2024	Markets Insider
Ki Young Ju (CryptoQuant)	Bearish	Bullish	Not specified	April 5 & 9, 2025	X Post April 5, X Post April 9

🐂 Bullish Perspective – Arthur Hayes

Source: Arthur Hayes' tweets

Relevant Quoted Text (click to expand)

On April 7, 2025, Arthur Hayes stated, "Remember, money printing is the only answer they have,"

On April 8, 2025, he added, "CNY deval = narrative that Chinese capital flight will flow into $BTC. It worked in 2013, 2015, and can work in 2025."

Additionally, in a Cointelegraph article on April 3, 2025, Hayes is quoted saying, "I still believe Bitcoin can hit $250,000 by year-end because now that the BBC has put Powell in his place, the Fed will flood the market with dollars."

Arthur Hayes is back on his money printer talk. In early April, he argued that with the Fed and PBOC both leaning into liquidity again, Bitcoin could see major capital inflows—especially from China. He even floated a $250K BTC target by year-end, citing historical trends from 2013 and 2015.

💡

TL;DR

Hayes is firmly bullish short and long term. His thesis? Central banks gonna print, and Bitcoin gonna pump.

🦉 Cautious Perspective – Citi Research

Source: Markets Insider

Relevant Quoted Text (click to expand)

In their report summarized on December 25, 2024, Citi Research states,

"This year was a strong one for crypto, registering a 90%+ increase in total market cap,"

and they expect "the current macro backdrop to continue to support risky trades into the first quarter,"

but "Macro may turn less favorable over the rest of the year given heightened US policy uncertainty and forecasted equity volatility."

Citi’s December 2024 report noted that crypto had a banger year (90% market cap growth) and Q1 2025 might continue the trend. But they warned that policy uncertainty and volatility in the U.S. could rain on the parade later in the year.

💡

TL;DR

Cautiously optimistic. Short-term vibes are decent, but they’re side-eyeing 2025’s second half.

🐻 Bearish Perspective – Ki Young Ju

Source: X Post (April 5), X Post (April 9)

Relevant Quoted Text (click to expand)

On April 5, 2025, Ki Young Ju stated, "Bitcoin bull cycle is over — here’s why,"

He later clarified on April 9, 2025, "I'm long-term bullish," but his short-term view remains bearish based on the initial statement.

Ki Young Ju declared the bull cycle “over” on April 5, based on on-chain data showing supply > demand. He later clarified he’s still long-term bullish—but short-term? Not looking great. BTC dropped from $109K to ~$81K by the time of writing, backing up his bearish stance.

💡

TL;DR

Bearish short term, bullish long term. He’s reading the chain and not feeling the vibes—for now.

But those are just a few voices in the crowd. To really understand where the market stands, we need to zoom out and look at the full spectrum of takes—bullish, bearish, and everything in between.

🗣️ Other Expert Opinions

Before we dive into the full table of expert opinions, here are a few things worth noting:

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Summary Table of Expert Opinions

(Ordered by Prediction Date, Most Recent to Oldest.)

Recency Prioritized: More recent takes (like Rekt Capital’s and Arthur Hayes’ in April) are at the top to reflect the latest vibes, including BTC’s drop to ~$81K from its $109K Jan high.

Context Matters: Older predictions (like Lyn Alden’s in Oct 2024) show how outlooks have shifted as the market evolved.

Sentiment Shift: Early bulls (e.g. Galaxy Digital) contrast with recent mixed or bearish takes (e.g. Ki Young Ju), showing how the recent dip changed the tone.

Expert/Source	Short-Term View	Long-Term View	Price Prediction for 2025 (BTC)	Prediction Date	Source Link
Rekt Capital	Bullish (correction)	Bullish	Not specified	April 9 & 10, 2025	X Post April 9, X Post April 10
Arthur Hayes	Bullish	Bullish	Not specified	April 7-10, 2025	X Posts
Ki Young Ju (CryptoQuant)	Bearish	Bullish	Not specified	April 5 & 9, 2025	X Post April 5, X Post April 9
PlanB (Stock-to-Flow)	Bullish (dip)	Bullish	Not specified	April 8, 2025	X Post
Raoul Pal (Real Vision)	Correction, then rally	Bullish (to 2026)	Potentially $300,000+	March 6, 2025	TradingView
Taki Tsaklanos (InvestingHaven)	Bullish	Bullish	$85,500–$165,000	February 18, 2025	InvestingHaven
Michael Saylor	Bullish	Extremely Bullish	Not specified (long-term $5M)	February 14, 2025	TheStreet Crypto
Industry Experts (Security.org)	Bullish	Bullish	Up to $150,000	January 31, 2025	Security.org
Dan Morehead (Pantera Capital)	Bullish	Bullish (peak Aug 2025)	Not specified	January 13, 2025	Pantera Capital
Peter L. Brandt	Mixed (crash/rise)	Not specified	Possible crash to $78,000	January 8, 2025	Forbes
Cathie Wood	Not specified	Bullish	Not specified (long-term $1.5M by 2030)	January 6, 2025	The Motley Fool
VanEck Analysts	Pullback expected	Bullish (recovery)	$180,000 (peak)	January 3, 2025	Funds Society
Galaxy Digital’s Head of Research	Bullish	Bullish	$185,000	December 31, 2024	Galaxy Digital
Citi Research	Cautiously optimistic	Potential for growth	Not specified	December 25, 2024	Markets Insider
Delphi Digital	Cautious	Bullish	Not specified	December 24, 2024	ChainCatcher
Messari (Ryan Selkis)	Positive	Bullish	Not specified	December 16, 2024	BeInCrypto
Lyn Alden	Steady improvement	Bullish	Potentially $200,000 by 2026	October 27, 2024	The Daily Hodl

This table paints a broader picture: most experts agree we're in a correction phase within a larger bull market, with the long-term outlook still overwhelmingly bullish.

🏦

Ties to the Stock Market

Several sources—like Citi Research, Delphi Digital, and Raoul Pal—point to a strong link between crypto and equities, driven by macro factors. Others, like Arthur Hayes, hint at a possible decoupling if capital starts flowing into Bitcoin independently.

❔

What’s Next?

The general forecast? Recovery sometime in late 2025. Price targets range from $78K (Brandt’s worst-case crash) to $300K+ (Raoul Pal’s “everything goes right” scenario), fueled by things like institutional adoption, clearer regulation, and tech innovation.

TL;DR: We’re still bullish? 🤔

That’s the general vibe. Bullish short-term (with a side of correction), even more bullish long-term.

But let’s not oversimplify. Slapping green candles on complex macro reports and calling it a day would be a disservice to our own intelligence.

Yes, most experts are leaning bullish—but that doesn’t mean it’s straight lines up from here.

It also doesn’t mean that they’re right.

A word of caution

Experts aren’t called experts because they’re always right.

They’re called experts because they’ve spent years—decades even—studying the thing they’re talking about. Which means their opinions are usually as good as it gets.

But that doesn’t mean they’re infallible. In fact, most of them have been wrong just as often as they’ve been right.

Take these two tweets from Ki Young Ju. Same person. Completely different takes. Just two months apart.

Markets move, data changes, sentiment flips—and even the sharpest minds shift their views accordingly.

Let’s look back at our three highlighted “experts” for a quick reality check:

Arthur Hayes: Known for bold, contrarian takes. He nailed the 2017 bull run, but missed in 2019 and 2021. He’s admitted to a 25% success rate, making his calls worth considering—but not gospel.

Ki Young Ju: Strong on short-term, data-driven insights. His on-chain takes often align with near-term moves, though longer-term predictions (like in 2024) have been hit-or-miss.

Citi Research: Offers macro-heavy, cautious views. While their price calls have been off in the past (like in 2020), they’re useful for understanding broader trends like regulation and institutional shifts.

At least they’re not as often wrong as Cramer

Moral of the story?

Here’s my take:

Nobody really knows what’s going to happen

None of it really matters

You’re ngmi without a strategy

Let me explain.

Knowing (or guessing) where we are in the cycle doesn’t actually solve your problems. The only reason we obsess over it is to try and time the top or bottom—to know when to buy or sell. (yes, I speak from personal experience 🥲)

But here’s the hard truth: you probably won’t time it right. And the sooner you accept that, the better off ~~you’ll~~ we’ll be.

The more I read up on expert opinions, the more obvious it becomes: nobody really knows. Every day, something new can blindside the market and break all predictions.

Macro analysis helps you understand the why behind the moves—but not the when. Unless you plan to trade full-time, your best bet isn’t guessing outcomes—it’s building a strategy that works even when the outcome is unknown.

So, how do you strategize?

Well, that’s a topic for another article.. but it looks something like this..

Until next time, my degen friends 🫡