Unchained has published a bear market guide titled “21 Moves to Make in the Downturn,” offering bitcoin holders a practical playbook for navigating periods of price decline and pessimism.
The guide opens with a core thesis:
The degree to which you benefit from bitcoin is almost entirely determined by your decisions while the market is pessimistic.
Understand the asset before anything else
The first section grounds readers in why bitcoin exists.
The U.S. dollar has lost more than 90% of its purchasing power over the last century, and bitcoin’s fixed supply is positioned as the direct solution to that problem.
Unchained writes:
“In a world of infinite cash, bitcoin is the only currency with a supply that cannot be manipulated or debased.”
On time horizons, the guide points to historical data showing that after holding bitcoin for three years, the chance of underperforming the dollar drops to roughly 1% of cases.
Expand that to five years, and bitcoin has outperformed the dollar in 100% of historical cases.
Don’t try to time the bottom
The guide is direct about market timing being a losing game.
It recounts how investors who sold at $30,000 in 2022 expecting a drop to $20,000 were right — but those same people then expected a drop to $10,000 and were wrong, missing the recovery entirely:
“You may think to yourself when prices are high that ‘I’ll buy a lot when prices are lower,’ but if prices are lower, it often means that there are structural reasons why buying is unattractive to most market participants.”
Instead, Unchained recommends dollar-cost averaging through the storm, buying on a fixed schedule to accumulate more sats at lower prices without the emotional burden of timing decisions.
Protect what you have
Several moves focus on security.
Unchained warns against yield-bearing custodial platforms, noting that in every major bear market — Mt. Gox in 2014, FTX and Celsius in 2022 — counterparty failures wiped out customer funds:
“The only reliable way to ensure your protection is to not wait until there is a sign of trouble.”
The guide recommends moving bitcoin off exchanges into self-custody, and specifically advocates for multisig setups that eliminate single points of failure:
“With a multisig vault, you can distribute keys across different geographic locations and hardware wallets, building redundancy into your security model the same way engineers build redundancy into bridges and aircraft.”
Play the longest game
The guide closes with a reminder that bear markets have historically concentrated bitcoin among those who understand it best, with long-term holder supply growing through every downturn:
“You must pay attention to bitcoin when no one else is. That’s when generational wealth is quietly built.”
Other practical moves in the guide include rolling over forgotten 401(k)s into a bitcoin IRA, setting bitcoin-denominated savings goals, cutting expenses to redirect cash into accumulation, and being cautious with bitcoin-backed loans given the volatility risk of margin calls.
