Bitcoin's monthly RSI just printed a 2022-level low. The bull case is starting to sound like the bear case.

Bitcoin's monthly relative strength index has dropped to a level last seen in the 2022 capitulation, Cointelegraph reported on 11 July 2026, the same morning Real Vision's chief crypto analyst told readers the asset is probably already in the second half of its bear cycle. Two reads on the same tape: one says the bleeding is nearly over, the other says the chart has rarely looked this broken.

The bullish reading is a contrarian one. Extreme oversold readings, on monthly timeframes, have historically marked the kind of floors that look foolish in the moment. The bearish reading is that the monthly RSI is not a strategy, and that oversold can stay oversold. Both cases are now being made in the same news cycle, which is itself a signal about how little conviction the market is currently demanding from anyone with a view.

The chart is doing the talking

Cointelegraph's data desk flagged on 11 July 2026 that Bitcoin's monthly RSI had fallen to a level not recorded since 2022, the cycle that took the asset from its previous all-time high to under $16,000. Monthly RSI is a slow instrument; it takes weeks of closes to register, which is why traders tend to treat extreme monthly readings as regime markers rather than entry points. Reaching a print last seen during the last deep cold is, on its own, a fact about where the market is, not a forecast about where it goes next.

The reading lands in a market that is otherwise starved for clean catalysts. Spot volumes have thinned, derivative open interest has compressed relative to the cycle peak, and the reflexive flows that amplify moves in either direction have lost some of their grip. That much is consistent across both the bullish and bearish interpretations of the current print.

Coutts is calling the second half

Real Vision's Jamie Coutts said on 11 July 2026 that Bitcoin is "likely in the second half" of its bear market, with downside momentum fading and a path back toward prior highs forming. Coutts, who tracks on-chain and macro conditions together, is not calling a bottom to the week; he is calling the shape of the cycle. The distinction matters because the second half of a bear market, in his framework, is the part where the worst drawdowns are behind and the asset begins to grind, not rip.

Coutts separately pushed back on the more aggressive end of the price tape. Far too early, he said, to call $1 million by 2030, though he is confident Bitcoin could climb to $250,000 over the next couple of years. Read together, those two statements define his operating band: a multi-year grind back toward the prior cycle's euphoric print, not a vertical repricing.

The IMF enters the room

Hours after the RSI note, Cointelegraph flagged a separate warning from the International Monetary Fund: dollar-pegged stablecoins, the IMF now argues, could amplify bank-style currency runs during periods of stress. The framing matters because stablecoins have spent the last two cycles selling themselves as a better, faster dollar; the IMF's concern is that during a crisis, the redeemability promise is the first thing tested.

The structural point is not new, but its arrival at an IMF desk is. Tokenised dollars sit on top of reserves held largely at the same banks the assets are meant to complement. A coordinated redemption event would, in the IMF's read, transmit pressure back into the very funding markets stablecoin issuers lean on. That is the mechanism the Fund is now naming out loud.

What both stories have in common

Both stories sit inside the same late-cycle story: the workarounds the last bull market built are now being audited. Monthly RSI extremes invite the question of whether the bear is over. Stablecoin refinancing invites the question of whether the dollar pipes that rode the bull market are as sturdy as their issuers claimed.

A few things remain genuinely contested. The monthly RSI print describes a current state; it does not, on its own, distinguish between a floor and the start of a multi-month basing range. Coutts's call for the second half of a bear is a cycle claim, not a date claim, and the next two monthly closes will test it directly. The IMF's stablecoin warning, meanwhile, is a scenario stress test, not an indictment of any single issuer; the market has not yet been forced to clear one through a real shock.

What to watch next is straightforward. Two more monthly RSI closes below the current print would harden the late-cycle bear case Coutts is making. Any move by a major issuer to disclose reserves at higher frequency, or to lengthen the redemption queue, would harden the IMF's. Neither has happened yet, and both are now the kind of thing a serious market participant should be able to articulate without prompting.

Desk note: Monexus treats the monthly RSI print as a state reading and Coutts's call as a cycle claim; both can be true, neither is a forecast to act on without independent corroboration. The IMF stablecoin item is reported as a Fund warning, not as a policy change.

Wire provenance

This editorial synthesis draws on the following public wire/social posts:

• https://t.me/cointelegraph
• https://t.me/cointelegraph
• https://t.me/cointelegraph