There's a social media groundswell predicting bitcoin above $90,000. That might be a problem.
The crowd is heavily leaning bullish, and that's often a contrarian signal, according to Santiment.
By Omkar Godbole, AI Boost|Edited by Sheldon Reback Apr 29, 2026, 9:11 a.m. Make preferred on
What to know:
- Retail investors on social media are increasingly predicting that bitcoin will soon trade above $90,000, viewing lower price ranges as reflecting "fear, uncertainty and doubt."
- Analytics firm Santiment warns that this surge in bullish sentiment may be a contrarian signal, suggesting prices could move in the opposite direction.
- Bitcoin’s April recovery has already paused, with the price slipping to about $77,000 from above $79,000 earlier this week, leaving unclear whether this is a brief pullback or the start of a broader reversal.
The retail crowd has spoken: Bitcoin’s BTC$77,704.50 price is headed above $90,000 in the days ahead in a move that would flip the year-to-date return from negative to positive. What's in doubt is whether the market plays ball.
Analytics firm Santiment scanned thousands of crypto social media posts across X, Reddit, Telegram and other platforms and found that over the past week, calls have skewed heavily toward BTC price trading above $90,000. Mentions of the $50,000–$59,000 range are being dismissed as expressions of fear, uncertainty, doubt or their acronym, FUD.
Clearly, the crowd is expecting the slow recovery from the February low of around $60,000 to extend well into May. And why not? Flows into exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are back, and bitcoin has held up through weeks of Iran-related conflict, oil price surges and a string of DeFi hacks that once again highlighted the risks embedded in blockchain infrastructure.
What do you call a market that doesn’t fall on a stack of bad news? Bullish, right? That’s what the crowd seems to be pricing in.
Santiment says this bullishness as precisely the reason to be cautious.
“Price predictions of a coin are a great way to see what the OPPOSITE likely path for prices will look like,” the firm said on X, implying that overly bullish social sentiment can act as a contrarian indicator for a potential bearish performance.
As American poet Charles Bukowski put it, although he wasn't talking about markets: “Wherever the crowd goes, run in the other direction. They’re always wrong.”
Contrarian traders in traditional markets use similar sentiment gauges, including the AAII Investor Sentiment Survey, which tracks retail investor bullishness versus bearishness. There's also the CNN Fear & Greed Index, which aggregates market momentum and positioning signals into a single sentiment barometer.
Interestingly, BTC’s recovery rally has already stalled this week, with prices pulling back to $77,000 from highs above $79,000 on Monday. Whether this is just a pause, or the start of a broader reversal, remains to be seen.
Bitcoin NewsAI Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk's full AI Policy.More For You
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