Bitcoin breaks one-year downtrend, analyst says bullish momentum returns

Bitcoin appears to have snapped a year-long losing streak in its price structure, at least according to one closely followed analyst. Gert van Lagen declared on September 21 that BTC has printed its first higher high since topping out near $126K, a development he calls a definitive break of the downtrend that has weighed on the asset since late 2025.Bitcoin was trading around $85,900 at the time of his assessment, which means it's still roughly 30% below the all-time high it set approximately a year ago. But for technical traders, the direction of the trend matters more than the distance from the peak. And the direction, van Lagen argues, has finally flipped.In technical analysis, a "higher high" is exactly what it sounds like: a price peak that exceeds the previous one. It's the minimum requirement for an uptrend. Without it, every rally is just a bounce inside a downtrend, the kind of move that lures in buyers before prices resume their slide.Bitcoin's failure to produce a higher high for an entire year meant that every rally since the $126K peak was, structurally speaking, just a lower high inside a bearish trend. Van Lagen's claim is that this pattern has now broken, which shifts the technical backdrop from bearish to potentially bullish.The analyst has maintained a consistently optimistic long-term view throughout 2025 and 2026, frequently citing Elliott Wave patterns, post-halving historical behavior, and trendline analysis. His price targets for this cycle sit between $300K and $450K, numbers that would represent a roughly 3.5x to 5.2x move from current levels.Bitcoin's recent move hasn't happened in a vacuum. The September 2026 rally has been accompanied by a golden cross in moving averages, a technical event where the 50-day moving average crosses above the 200-day.More tangibly, the rally has coincided with hundreds of millions of dollars in ETF inflows. Institutional capital flowing into spot Bitcoin ETFs has been one of the defining features of this cycle, and the recent surge suggests that larger players are positioning for upside rather than heading for the exits.Significant short liquidations have also accompanied the price move. When traders betting against Bitcoin get forced out of their positions, it creates a cascading buying effect that can accelerate upward price action.The Federal Reserve's recent actions have played a supporting role as well, with macroeconomic conditions providing a tailwind for risk assets including Bitcoin.Van Lagen has also pointed to the behavior of long-term holders as evidence that the selling pressure may be exhausted. The absence of capitulation among this cohort, investors who have held through the drawdown from $126K, suggests that the current price levels are supported by conviction rather than speculation.Trading at roughly $86K, Bitcoin sits about 16% below the $100K threshold. A clean break above $100K could trigger a feedback loop of retail buying, media attention, and momentum-driven capital flows.Van Lagen's $300K to $450K targets imply that the current cycle has a long way to run. For context, reaching the low end of that range would represent a move of roughly 3.5x from current prices.For traders watching this setup, the key levels to monitor are whether Bitcoin can sustain the higher high structure that van Lagen identified and whether it can reclaim $100K with conviction.