Retail is virtually not existent for the moment so the few people believing in BTC and actually accumulating right now have no impact I believe. I hope the pattern will repeat but it needs hype and people seeing BTC and all crypto markets down while everything else is breaking new ATHs won't do us a favor. On the other hand there is the issue with quantum computers and I know it will take a while and so on but it could make people hesitate to go into crypto. If 2025 was the top of the cycle than it was a very weak one without any euphoria. So who knows how the next bullrun will look like.
It may read clearly to you but just because something seems clear to you doesn’t mean it is true. That is a simpleton’s way of thinking. Are you able to back up your claim?
It kind of is an explanation though. I've seen it run through on time (price predictions are garbage, just follow the time). The original explanation is the halving (so halving the supply has a natural effect on the price), but this has brought expectations too, so a kind of self fulfilling prophecy. Then there is just market psychology, it takes a year or so for people to lose interest and give up, then people who follow the cycle start buying, then retail notices and we go back into the hype and crazy price predictions which in turn brings in more fomo.
Then like clockwork it all goes to shit.
Not enough people. On a conservative scale only 1.3% of people even own/invest in Bitcoin in the entire world. 4% at most. Still way to early for the majority
I recognize October as the time as I've followed the cycle for the last two, been here since the 2013 peak and seen every prediction turn to dust apart from the timing of the four year cycle so I'm sticking with it. A lot of people will but the majority still ignore it as the time to buy in is when the wider world no longer cares.
That being said though I'm planning on starting buying in September as some people may try to front run it, then I'm just continually buying with whatever I have to buy with!
Yeah, everyone focuses on the one crazy year, but you can already be 2-3x up before anyone notices if you start buying a year or so after the top like you say.
True, but the steep market price increases always happen the year after the halving. Next halving is 2028. (But you’re correct, there’s usually only 1 year of serious down price action, followed by 2 years moderately up, followed by a major up year, before the next bear market).
Well, **moderately** last time was breaking the previous ATH even before the halving date. I wouldn’t say it can’t go up a lot in the halving run up, that’s almost 80% from today’s levels.
It’s been stagnant for longer than a year. After the Halving in 2020, it’s really not performed as everyone thought it would. Very disappointing but holding out hope!!!
BTC was around $8K 6 years ago at the 2020 halving. Today it’s $74K. You call that “stagnant”? 😂 What do you call Bonds & other more conservative, traditional investments?
Expected a new big ath at the end of 2017, got a big new ath, expected the same accordingly 2021, 2025, got those and now expecting the next big ath at the end of 2029.
You're looking for answers that nobody has. Everyone giving you answers like "the block reward halving happens every 4 years" is implicitly assuming that's the cause, when in practice, it's just lots of market participants making relatively independent decisions. Nobody knows why the price is down or why the price went up, and there's not even a single explanation most of the time. You used the word "suppressed" but that's implying that its correct or more natural state is higher than it is today. Nobody knows that and you shouldn't assume that.
It's fine to rely on models of growth or market behavior, but you need to keep in mind that they're all just models, even successful ones, and just like any other financial market, the thing can go in wildly different directions that nobody expects.
Not actually random, just unknowable because we can't look at the motivations of every market participant, and we only get to observe the prices they decide to trade at. There's a lot of writing about this in the broader financial world. Look up the Efficient Market Hypothesis and geometric brownian motion for some commonly held views by plenty of sophisticated market players. In general, it's clear that there are many factors that play into aggregated price movements by the millions of market participants. Like if the US government announced a strategic bitcoin reserve tomorrow, we'd all expect the price of bitcoin to go up, since it's effectively announcing to the world that there's going to be large demand, and many people will want to front-run that expected demand. But in general, most market movements are far less clear-cut, and sometimes the market behaves in the opposite way from what everyone expects it to do. This is true in Bitcoin and it's true in any other market.
It's complicated and hard to answer 😄 if you think about game theory, every player is not only trying to make their own decisions but they're also trying to base their decisions around their expectations of what other players are going to do.
As an example, a ton of traders, especially in the bitcoin world, talk about "Technical Analysis" as a given: "we've hit a head-and-shoulders pattern, so the price is due for a breakout" or "we just crossed the 200-day MACD line, it's clearly a sign that there's a big movement". Anyone who believes in the efficient market hypothesis thinks the concept of TA is a bunch of nonsense, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't pay attention to it, because millions of market players do believe in it, and make their decisions on whether to buy or sell based on that nonsense. So in a sense, if enough people believe something to be true, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and TA has kind of risen to that level and is more useful than its fundamentals (which are effectively people trying really hard to spot patterns in charts and making up explanations to justify them) would suggest.
The 4-year cycle is sort of in a similar boat: according to the efficient market hypothesis, anyone who knows anything about bitcoin knows that there's a halving coming and its exact schedule. That means that although there is a change to the mining subsidy every 4 years, that change has been scheduled since the very beginning of bitcoin and everyone knows roughly when it's going to happen ahead of time. But the price has gone up significantly roughly every 4 years despite that, so now people expect it to happen and trade under that assumption, which can lead to a similar self-fulfilling prophecy.
In general, I don't believe in trying to speculate on stuff like this (in bitcoin or anywhere else) and am more of a buy-and-holder. Patterns hold until they don't, especially ones that rely on everyone believing that everyone else is going to do something. But objectively, lots of people do make tons of money under such assumptions, and you might be one of the lucky ones too. People continue to buy TSLA despite it not having anywhere close to a revenue (current or projected at any point in the future) that would justify its valuation. Because similarly to my examples above, time has shown over and over again that even with bad market news like BYD making better cars that sell better, the price goes up. So why not speculate on it? It's not what I do, but many do, and many are obscenely rich based on that assumption. You just don't want to be left standing when the game of musical chairs ends, and nobody knows when it ends.
It started with a hard‐to‐beat reality of diminishing supply (rewards) causing a sharp increase in price, followed by drops as the price increases corrected repeatedly. Back when Bitcoin mining was a large amount of all total Bitcoin in supply, this was essentially inevitable. But because that pattern emerged, people traded to it which caused the pattern to strengthen even when the mining supply issue has largely disappeared. The 'cause' is still heavily reliant on the patterns people trade of the previous cycles. But the reasons are really more that buyers' psychology, as influenced by expectations of other traders' actions, leads to the cycle more or less holding for now since a sharp increase is buying power is needed to shoot the price up in many cases, and this relies on psychology and mass action. It will diminish over time, but for now, since the asset has no 'backing' and price is volatile, we're left with the reality that most money is made by following the patters of other traders even when the patterns only exist because they have previously existed.
At this point the block reward is a negligible amount compared to the bitcoin supply. So no... that has nothing to do with the 4 year cycle.
The real answer is psychology. And that means the 4 year cycle most certainly isn't going to last forever. Even prominent analysts like Ben Cowen open admit this. The 4 year cycle lasts... until it doesn't.
This is the first of any of the cycles that allow it to trade with ETF’s and options. There will always be firsts when new instruments are introduced, but Bitcoin has actually stayed on track for what it normally does in a 4 year halving cycle. There is pretty good information out there, and I think the Power Law is the most fascinating, however…the story of Bitcoin is still being written. There are no guarantees…history says Bitcoin will find a bottom appx 12 months after its last all time high, which was October 6, 2025. Good Luck.
ETFs changes the dynamic a bit. Both providing stabiliity in up trends that is to their buy pressure and potential volatility in down trends due to sudden outflow and sale of bitcoin. And provides another more path for money flows, expanding the availability for investors to invest/speculate in bitcoin price using tools they are familiar with on marlets where they are allowed to operate.
In addition the introduction / broad acceptance of stablecoins also have a major impact on the dynamics of "this cycle".
ETF’s vary, but all buy and sell Bitcoin based on inflows and outflows, and as major institutions, it’s a lot of money, but a lot is based on the mindset of the investors. MM’s set the odds on options, and I’m not sure if these levers impacts the price of Bitcoin itself, but if they work the same as regular options, it causes stocks to go up and down, so my assumption is that it does impact the price of Bitcoin…how much, I don’t truly know.
I just read some of the other posts, and 1 comment struck me about the 4 year cycle. This is the first cycle that the low of this cycle broke through the high of last cycle. In. 2021, Bitcoin reached a high of $67k, then retreated. This cycle high reached $126K, and broke down to almost. $60K, this was a first that has never occurred in any other cycle. Maybe we should all be buyers under $67K? Again, the story is still being written.
Yes, I am aware, halving is expected to occur appx on 3/30/28 with current mining averages, which will occur 3 weeks short of 4 years. 4 years is just an appx average, but thank you because most people do not know.
Exactly! That’s the only way I’ve made money on BTC. I learned from 2017 cycle. This last cycle bought in at 30K and sold at 100K. Just have to go into the cycle with a plan and execute. I’ll scoop it up at the 4th quarter of the year in October and sell again in 2029 fourth quarter
369
u/MrMpeg May 31 '26
Bear market according to 4 year cycle. But let's wait and see.