In crypto, bullish means expecting a price to rise, and 32 of 36 long-listed Phemex crypto perpetuals passed a common test of it in mid-October 2026 by closing above their 200-day average. So what does bullish mean in crypto for a trader? It means leaning long, and bearish means expecting a fall.
Readings that strong are rare. Among the 34 perpetuals with a 200-day average on every close of the year to mid-October 2026, 30 passed at its end against 9 at its start. A majority passed on only 55 of the year's 366 daily closes (15.0%), all from late August 2026 on. On 27 closes between early February and early March 2026, none of the 34 did.
Bullish | At a glance |
What it means | Expecting a rise. Bearish means expecting a fall |
Where it comes from | "Bear" recorded in 1709, "bull" in 1714 |
A common test | A daily close above the 200-day simple average |
An example | BTC closed 12.73% above its 200-day on a red candle |
How widespread | 32 of 36 long-listed Phemex crypto perps, mid-October |
The main risk | Signals clash: DOGE golden cross, close 7.42% under 200-day |
On Phemex | A long is the bullish trade, a short the bearish one |
What Does Bullish Mean in Crypto?
Bullish means you expect a coin's price to go up, and a bullish trader acts on that view by buying the coin or opening a long position. The word can describe a person, a trade or a chart, so "I'm bullish on Bitcoin" and "Bitcoin's chart looks bullish" point the same way.
The textbook bullish definition comes from stocks. The SEC's Investor.gov glossary sets a bull market at a 20%-plus rise in a broad index over two months or longer, and a bear market at the same fall. That 20% line belongs to stock indexes, and crypto traders lean on chart tests of their own.
The bullish meaning in crypto chat is looser and louder. A trader who calls Ether bullish expects it to climb. The word turns up in the same threads as what LFG means in crypto, the cheer traders post when a coin lists or prints a new high.
Why Is It Called Bullish and Bearish?
The bear came first. World Wide Words' history of bulls and bears dates the market "bear" to 1709 and the market "bull" to 1714. Its 1709 source is The Tatler, which told of a major who "bought the Bear of another officer".
The early short sellers were called bear-skin jobbers, after a proverb about selling the bear's skin before you've caught the bear. A bear sold shares he didn't own and hoped the price would drop, so he could buy them back cheaper before he had to deliver them.
Wordorigins.org traces that adage to a 1567 letter from Nicholas Throckmorton to William Cecil, more than a century before it reached the stock market.
The bull arrived as the bear's partner. World Wide Words author Michael Quinion reports the suggestion that "bull was invented as an alliterative animal analogy to bear". He describes a bull as one who "buys shares hoping to sell them at a higher price later".
A bull tossing its horns up and a bear swiping its paws down make a handy memory aid, the picture Phemex's 2022 explainer on bullish vs bearish markets uses. The written record points to a proverb about bearskins and a second animal picked because it starts with the same letter.
Is Bullish Up or Down?
Bullish is up. A bullish trader expects the price to rise, a bullish candle closes above the level where it opened, and a bullish signal points to further gains.
Bearish is down, so being bearish on Solana means expecting Solana's price to fall. Both words describe an expectation, and an expectation can be wrong.
Near a record, a bullish call runs into the question of what ATH means in crypto, since above an all-time high there's no older trading to measure against.
Is Crypto Bullish or Bearish?
Crypto closed mid-October 2026 mostly bullish by the 200-day test. Of the 36 Phemex USDT-margined crypto perpetuals with at least 200 daily closes in their current listing, 32 finished above their own 200-day average and four finished below it.
Below its 200-day, mid-October 2026 | Close vs its own 200-day average |
XLM | -0.51% |
1000SHIB | -3.29% |
BCH | -6.50% |
DOGE | -7.42% |
That breadth arrived late in the year. Before August 2026, no close had more than 11 of the 34 perpetuals tracked all year above their 200-day, and only 2 of the 34 passed in mid-April 2026. A majority first passed in late August, and all 34 passed together on only 9 closes of the year, the first of them in late September 2026.
By this test, crypto spent most of the year bearish and turned bullish quickly.
Method: The 200-day average is the simple mean of 200 consecutive daily closes on each Phemex perpetual, counted only inside its current listing. The group leaves out traditional-market contracts such as stocks and gold, USDC duplicates and pre-market listings, and it drops 20 contracts too new to have 200 closes. The year series uses the 34 that had a 200-day average on every close.
Can a Bullish Candle Be Red?
A single candle that closes below its open is red, and on that one bar it's bearish, but a red day can still belong to a bullish trend.
Bitcoin's mid-October bar shows how. Phemex's BTC/USDT perpetual opened the day near $82,190 and closed near $81,580, a red candle. That close still finished 12.73% above Bitcoin's 200-day average of about $72,360, so the day was red and the trend stayed bullish.
Candle colour and trend answer two different questions. The colour tells you which side won one day, and the trend tells you which side has been winning for months. Read a red candle against the average before you call the trend broken.
Bullish vs Bearish: What Is the Difference?
Bullish vs bearish comes down to the direction you expect and the trade you take on it. The bearish meaning mirrors the bullish one, an expectation that the price will fall.
Question | Bullish | Bearish |
What you expect | Price rises | Price falls |
The trade | Buy or go long | Sell or go short |
Mood (Investor.gov) | Optimistic | Pessimistic |
The 200-day test | Close above the average | Close below the average |
Traders also use the animals as nouns. The bulls are the buyers pushing a price up and the bears are the sellers pushing it down, so "the bears took over" means sellers had the upper hand.
Neither word comes with a deadline. You can be bullish on Bitcoin for the year and bearish on it for the week, and both calls can turn out right.
How Do Traders Use Bullish and Bearish?
Traders turn the two words into tests they can check on a chart, and the 200-day average is the plainest of them. TradingView's help page on stocks trading above their moving averages says a stock above its moving average is "generally considered to be in an uptrend". A breadth reading counts how many members of a group pass that test.
Crosses between averages are the second test, and our page on the Bitcoin golden cross and death cross covers how traders read them.
The two tests can split on one coin. DOGE's 50-day average crossed above its 200-day in early October 2026, a golden cross. Yet DOGE closed mid-October at $0.08091, 7.42% under its 200-day average. XLM and 1000SHIB showed the same split. A cross carries 50 days of earlier gains, and the close shows where the price stands that day.
What Does Bullish Mean for Your Trading on Phemex?
On Phemex, a bullish view becomes a long position and a bearish view becomes a short. A long on the BTC/USDT perpetual gains if Bitcoin rises and a short gains if it falls, so you can act on either view without owning the coin.
Futures use leverage, and a leveraged position is closed automatically if losses reach its margin. The BTC/USDT contract runs up to 150x leverage, and funding changes hands every eight hours, so a position held for weeks pays or collects it many times.
Going short is the bearish trade, and the Crypto Short Selling 101 guide shows how to open one on Phemex.
Name the test behind a bullish call before you trade it, because the same test then tells you where the view is wrong. A long taken on a close above the 200-day has its exit question answered by the first close back below it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is bullish good or bad?
Bullish is neither good nor bad, because it describes a view about direction. It's good news for anyone holding a long position if the price rises, and bad news for a short seller. A bullish call can also be wrong, so it needs a test and an exit.
What does bearish mean in crypto?
Bearish in crypto means expecting a price to fall, and a bearish trader sells or opens a short position. On the 200-day test, four long-listed Phemex crypto perpetuals closed mid-October 2026 below their average, with DOGE the furthest under at 7.42%.
Is bullish buy or sell?
Bullish points to buying, either the coin itself or a long futures position. Bearish points to selling or going short. The word names the direction you expect, so a trader can stay bullish and still wait for a better price to buy.
Is bullish or bearish better?
Neither is better on its own, because markets switch between the two. A majority of the 34 perpetuals tracked all year passed the 200-day test on only 55 of 366 closes, all in the last 57 closes to mid-October 2026. Either fixed stance would have been wrong for months.
Bottom Line
Bullish names a direction, and the word only carries weight once you say which test and which timeframe sit behind it.
On the 200-day test, the same 34 perpetuals went from none above their average in early March 2026 to all of them in late September. A bullish reading is a snapshot of the closes, so the next close is the place to check it.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and is not financial advice. Cryptocurrency trading involves substantial risk. Always do your own research before making investment decisions.
