Glossary
What is a bear market?
In one sentence
A bear market is a prolonged period of falling prices and pessimism, often lasting far longer than newcomers expect.
A bear market is an extended decline accompanied by negative sentiment and falling activity. Crypto bear markets have historically involved falls of 70–90% in major assets and lasted a year or more — the drawdown after the 2021 peak ran deep into 2022 and beyond.
The duration is the part people underestimate. It is not a sharp drop and recovery; it is a long grind where prices stay depressed, interest fades and projects quietly fail. Many tokens that fall in a bear market never recover at all, which is a different outcome from “wait and it comes back”.
Bear markets are also when the fundamentals of a project become visible, because speculation no longer supports the price. Whatever is still being built when nobody is watching is closer to a real signal than anything published during a rally.
For example
"It always comes back" is true of the market as a whole so far, and untrue of a great many individual coins.