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Bitcoin bulls may have a long-wait for the cryptocurrency to retrace all-time highs according to UBS research analyst Kevin Dennean .

Should the bitcoin bubble follow the recovery path of the Dow Jones after the 1929 stock market collapse, bulls will have to wait over 22 years.

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Bitcoin has rallied more than 40% year to date, taking the controversial cryptocurrency above $5,000, though the reasons for the price spike are not immediately clear.

Despite the recent rally, the broader collapse of the cryptocurrency has largely followed the path of previous bubbles, according to data compiled by UBS analyst Kevin Dennean.

As shown in the chart below, the bitcoin collapse is indexed to other well-known bubbles such as crashes of the Dow Jones in 1929, the Nikkei in 1989, the NASDAQ in 2000, Oil in 2008 and Shanghai A-shares in 2015.

FactSet, coinmarketcap.com, UBS

Dennean said crypto-bulls point to other bubbles and recoveries as a template for bitcoin's return prospects."The argument here is that bitcoin has gone through its bubble phase and is ready to rise phoenix-like from the ashes just as other assets and indices did in the past," writes Dennean in the research note.

However, those waiting for a crypto-recovery may have a long time to wait before bitcoin reaches previous peaks.

"We're struck by how long it took other asset bubbles to recover their peak levels (as long as 22 years for the Dow Jones Industrials) and how pedestrian the annualized returns from trough to the recovery often are," Dennean wrote.

With the exception of Shanghai, all the asset classes (including Bitcoin) collapsed by more than 75% from peak, with only the Dow Jones and NASDAQ recovering to previous levels. Nearly 30 years after the collapse of the Nikkei, the index has still not recovered and currently trades at about half its peak level.

"Maybe crypto-bull contingents should consider what happens after the bubble - not every bubble that bursts recovers the old highs," Dennean wrote.

FactSet, coinmarketcap.com, UBS

Bitcoin is up 40% year to date and 74% down from its all-time high of $19,783.21 reached in December, 2017.

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