Seven Industry Experts Share a New Perspective on Bitcoin's Four-Year Cycle—And Why It's Fundamentally Changed

Since Bitcoin’s inception eighteen years ago, the “four-year cycle” has served as the foundational belief system for crypto market participants. The narrative was simple: Bitcoin halving → supply contracts → price surges → altcoin rallies follow. Investors built position strategies around it, project teams timed fundraising to match it, and the entire industry synchronized with it.

Then something shifted.

After Bitcoin’s April 2024 halving, prices climbed from $60,000 to $126,000—a substantial move, but historically underwhelming. Altcoins barely budged. Meanwhile, macro factors and policy changes began steering the market more than the on-chain math ever could. The entrance of massive institutional capital through spot ETFs further complicated the picture.

So we asked ourselves: Does the four-year cycle still matter, or has it become obsolete?

To answer this, we spoke with seven seasoned crypto practitioners who collectively represent billions in assets under management and decades of market experience. Their insights reveal something unexpected: the cycle hasn’t died—it’s transformed.

The Foundation: What We Actually Mean by “Four-Year Cycle”

When discussing cycles, precision matters. The traditional model hinges on Bitcoin’s block reward halving, occurring roughly every four years. Supply decreases, miner economics shift, and prices find long-term support. On paper, it’s clean math.

But one fund founder offered a new perspective: the four-year cycle isn’t primarily about code; it’s about geopolitics and liquidity.

His thesis: the “four years” align suspiciously well with US election cycles and Federal Reserve liquidity patterns. Historical halvings mattered when new Bitcoin supply was significant relative to total circulation. Today, 2024-2028 will add only 600,000 Bitcoin to nearly 19 million already issued—less than $6 billion in new seller pressure, easily absorbed by Wall Street.

So what’s really driving the cycle now? Federal Reserve balance sheet expansion and global M2 growth.

Once Bitcoin entered the macro asset class via spot ETFs, the halving event became secondary. The cycle evolved from a supply-side story into a liquidity story.

Law or Self-Fulfilling Narrative? The Market Answers

Here’s where it gets philosophically interesting: Is the four-year cycle an objective economic law, or a story the market collectively believes into existence?

The consensus among our panel: It’s both, and the balance is shifting.

In Bitcoin’s early years, when miner output dominated, the supply-demand dynamics were mathematically undeniable. But each halving’s impact has diminished logarithmically—a basic economic principle. A data analyst on the panel noted that as halvings repeat, their price impact mathematically shrinks. Future cycles will show even weaker supply-side constraints.

Simultaneously, as Bitcoin’s market capitalization has exploded, pure supply changes matter less against the total pool of institutional capital. The cycle is becoming increasingly narrative-driven rather than mechanism-driven.

One partner at a multi-hundred-million dollar fund made a striking observation: the cycle has shifted from being a “hard constraint” to a “soft expectation.” As retail investors have given way to institutions, as regulatory frameworks have matured, and as macro policy has become paramount, the four-year template is being rewritten in real-time.

This doesn’t mean the cycle is dead—it means the cycle is being redefined by market structure, not just by mathematics.

Why This Cycle’s Returns Look Worse (And Why That’s Normal)

Bitcoin rising from $60,000 to $126,000 is still a 110% gain. Yet investors often describe it as underwhelming.

Why? Logarithmic decay is not a market failure—it’s a feature of growth.

As any asset class matures, each percentage gain requires exponentially larger capital inflows. A $1 trillion Bitcoin market doubling requires far more new money than a $100 billion Bitcoin market doubling. The returns compress not because the cycle “failed,” but because the game’s scale has fundamentally changed.

But there’s a structural component too. In previous cycles, spot ETF inflows arrived after the halving, concentrated in a violent price spike. This cycle? Over $50 billion flowed in before and after the halving, smoothing the supply shock across months rather than concentrating it in a parabolic explosion.

The gains are spread thinner, the volatility is lower, and the ascent is more gradual.

One participant who manages over $1 billion described the halving’s new role: it’s become a “secondary catalyst” rather than the main event. The real drivers are now institutional flows, macro liquidity, and real-world adoption (like RWA tokenization).

However, not everyone agrees with this optimistic framing. A mining-focused fund founder countered that halving increases production costs, and costs eventually establish price floors. Even in a mature market with compressed returns, halving still provides an upward price bias—just not the violent kind.

The verdict: Smaller gains aren’t a sign of cycle failure. They reflect that halving’s marginal impact is diminishing while ETFs and institutions are changing the rhythm of price discovery.

So Where Are We Now? The Consensus Fractures

Ask seven experts where we stand in the cycle, and you’ll get seven different answers—which might be the most honest answer of all.

The Pessimists:

One founder believes we’re in the early stages of a textbook bear market; most just don’t realize it yet. His evidence: mining profitability. Last cycle, miners paid ~$20,000 to produce Bitcoin and sold near $69,000—a 70% margin. This cycle, post-halving mining costs have approached $70,000, while the historical peak sits at $126,000—only a 40% margin. In a 20-year-old industry, declining returns per cycle is normal. Unlike 2020-2021, incremental capital isn’t flooding crypto; it’s flooding AI and tech stocks.

A technical analyst takes a middle path: we’re in a technical bear market (weekly closes below MA50) but not yet a cyclical bear. A cyclical bear typically requires simultaneous macro recession. His signal to watch: stablecoin supply growth. When stablecoins stop growing for 2+ months, the true bear is confirmed.

The Optimists:

Most panelists believe the cycle remains intact, but in a different form. Their logic: the rate-cutting cycle just began, global M2 is still expanding, and crypto—as the most liquidity-sensitive asset—hasn’t finished its uptrend.

Another argument: Wall Street is rebuilding finance on blockchain. Institutions are no longer speculating; they’re restructuring the financial system. Volatility will appear as “wide oscillations” in hindsight, not bear market signals.

One participant emphasized the new policy environment: crypto regulation is friendlier than ever, the Fed chair has changed, and rate cuts are coming. This institutional backdrop supports medium-to-long-term bullishness despite short-term chop.

The Real Story:

The divergence itself is revealing. The market isn’t disagreeing about data—it’s disagreeing about interpretation. The four-year cycle framework is insufficient to explain what’s happening now. Halving, time, and sentiment are being re-evaluated. Macro liquidity, market structure, and asset classification are the new variables.

This fragmentation suggests we’ve entered a transition phase where the old model is breaking down before a new one solidifies.

The New Bull Market (If It Comes) Will Look Completely Different

If the four-year cycle is weakening and we’re entering a phase of compressed bear markets with longer bull runways, where does growth actually come from?

Structural drivers replace cyclical ones:

One perspective: Bitcoin’s rise from speculation to “digital gold” to institutional portfolio allocation means the bull market is no longer cycle-dependent. It mirrors gold’s 50-year trajectory—a slow spiral upward against fiat currency degradation. Sovereign wealth funds and pension funds don’t time allocations to halvings; they deploy based on portfolio strategy. This means a different volatility profile but an undeniable upward bias.

Another angle: stablecoins are the real growth engine. The addressable market for stablecoins exceeds Bitcoin’s, and their penetration is more direct—through payments, settlements, and cross-border flows. As stablecoins become the interface layer of next-generation finance, crypto’s growth detaches from speculation and embeds into actual economic activity.

A consensus view: institutional adoption—whether through ETFs or RWA tokenization—creates “compound interest” market structure. Volatility smooths, but trend reversal becomes unlikely as long as allocations continue.

The macro view is simpler: as long as global liquidity remains loose and the dollar stays weak, deep bear markets become unlikely. Instead, expect a gold-like pattern: long oscillations interrupted by periodic surges.

Not everyone buys this. The mining-focused investor warns that structural economic problems (employment, wealth concentration, geopolitical risks) make a severe crisis in 2026-2027 plausible. In that scenario, even “safe” crypto assets wouldn’t escape contagion.

The conclusion: a slow bull is not consensus—it’s a conditional forecast that assumes liquidity remains accommodative.

The Altcoin Question: Is “Altcoin Season” Dead?

Ask any 2017 or 2021 participant about altcoins, and they’ll tell you stories of 10x and 100x moves on obscure tokens. This cycle? Altcoins have been almost entirely left behind.

The reasons are structural:

Bitcoin dominance has created a “safety within risk” dynamic—institutions prefer the blue chips. Regulatory clarity now favors tokens with clear utility and compliance, not experimental ones. And there’s no killer narrative like DeFi or NFT to anchor retail attention.

The consensus from our panel: altcoin seasons will still happen, but only for genuinely useful projects, and they’ll be highly selective.

One data analyst was blunt: a traditional altcoin season—where the rising tide lifts all boats—is mathematically impossible now. The total number of altcoins has exploded to unprecedented levels. Even with liquidity overflow, there’s simply too much inventory and too little capital for a broad rally.

The future pattern: sector-driven rallies, not token-driven rallies.

This mirrors the US stock market, where mega-cap stocks (like the “Magnificent Seven”) capture most gains, while small caps spike randomly but lack sustainability. The market has shifted from retail-driven attention economies to institution-driven balance sheet allocation.

In practical terms: chasing individual altcoins is futile. Track-level analysis—understanding which blockchain narratives have institutional tailwinds—is now the relevant framework.

What the Experts Are Actually Holding

In a market with fractured cycles and broken narratives, position allocation becomes more revealing than any prediction.

Strikingly, most panelists have heavily reduced altcoin exposure and operate at roughly 50% cash.

One fund founder’s defensive stance: mostly BTC and ETH, with gold instead of dollars as cash reserves (hedging fiat degradation). He’s cautious even on ETH and prefers exchange equity (for native yield).

A technical analyst: never below 50% cash, core BTC/ETH, altcoins below 10%, recently exited gold.

One manager operates nearly fully invested but concentrated: ETH as core holding, stablecoin positions (betting on utility, not cycles), plus major-cap assets like BTC, BCH, and BNB. The thesis: bet on public chain structure, not cycle timing.

The outlier: a mining-focused investor has nearly cleared all crypto, selling BTC near $110,000, expecting buy-back opportunities below $70,000 over the next two years.

The common thread: discipline over timing, structure over narrative, and meaningful cash buffers.

Is Now the Time to Buy?

This practical question splits opinion predictably.

The pessimists say no—we’re far from bottom. The real bottom arrives when “nobody dares to bottom fish anymore.” One analyst suggests the ideal DCA (dollar-cost average) entry sits below $60,000, roughly a 50% haircut from peak—the threshold that has worked in every previous bull market.

The moderates suggest now is a window to start building positions gradually, not aggressively fishing.

The singular consensus: never use leverage, never trade excessively, and maintain discipline. Judgment is far less important than system adherence.

The New Perspective

The four-year cycle hasn’t vanished—it’s been absorbed into a larger framework where liquidity, institutional structure, and macro policy dominate. The cycle itself has become one input among many, rather than the central organizing principle.

Bitcoin is no longer just a halving-driven asset; it’s a macro vehicle. Altcoins are no longer a rising-tide asset class; they’re a selection game. And the market is no longer a timing-based game; it’s a positioning game.

That’s the real shift. And understanding it requires letting go of the old cycle entirely.