A Red Q1? Bitcoin Is About To Make History If This Happens

Bitcoin’s price action has seen it all: five-digit collapses, regulatory crackdowns, exchange implosions, and bear markets that lasted the better part of two years. Through every one of those events, one record has been unblemished: Bitcoin has never closed January, February, and March all in the red within the same calendar year. Not once in its entire trading history. However, with only a few days left in March 2026, that untouched record is now on life support.

The Numbers That Tell The Story

Bitcoin is heading into the final stretch of March with a possibility of three straight losing opening months to a year, a setup it has never previously recorded in its trading history. The Coinglass monthly returns heatmap lays out the situation with uncomfortable precision. January 2026 closed down 10.17%. February followed with a 14.94% loss, which also created a record of the first consecutive red February after a 17.39% loss in 2025.

March is now at risk of closing in negative territory, with Bitcoin trading around $67,750 at the time of writing against a month-open price of $66,970 following February’s close. That puts March’s month-to-date return at approximately 0.31%, with one trading day remaining before the monthly candle seals shut.

Bitcoin Monthly Returns (%). Source: Coinglass

Cross-referencing the full historical dataset, no year in Bitcoin’s trackable price history (2013 to 2026) produced three consecutive red monthly closes to open the year. There were years with brutal individual months: January 2015 lost 33.05%, January 2018 dropped 25.41%, and February 2014 fell 31.03%. However, in each case, at least one of the three opening months recovered to close green, but 2026 has produced none of that relief.

Possible Six Months Of Consecutive Losses

Bitcoin has been on a long stretch of monthly red closes since it reached its October 2025 all-time high above $126,000. This led to five consecutive red closes in February 2025, which was the second time in its history. That record is now at risk of extending to six monthly red closes depending on how March eventually plays out.

The conditions behind this performance are a convergence of pressures that mounted steadily over the past six months.  As it stands, investor sentiment on Bitcoin has corroded to multi-year lows, and it is now at its lowest levels since the 2022 bear market. 

As it stands, the entire Q1 2026 is at a red performance of -22.6%. The Q1 2026 performance is the weakest opening quarter since 2018, when Bitcoin lost 50.7% of its value between January and March. That year’s first-quarter damage was more severe in absolute terms, but February gained 0.47%.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $67,750 with one day left to write the final line of a chapter most investors did not expect to see written at the start of the year.