Bitcoin Cycle Theory Explained: Is the Pattern Dead? Here’s What Experts Say

Key Takeaways:

Analysts say the cycle of price booms and busts tied to Bitcoin’s halving events is losing relevance. Large-scale accumulation by institutions, including ETFs and corporate treasuries, is creating a steadier and less volatile Bitcoin market. Instead of chasing hype-driven gains, retail investors should focus on fundamentals and switch to long-term strategies like dollar-cost averaging.

Crypto Twitter has been abuzz in recent days — this time over a theory. The Bitcoin Cycle Theory, also known as the four-year cycle theory, has become a key subject of debate within the crypto community on social media.

Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan arguably started the debate when he said the theory had lost its influence on the Bitcoin price. Likewise, CryptoQuant founder Ki Young Ju said, “The cycle is dead,” killed by institutional adoption.

For years, Bitcoin has followed a familiar pattern — a four-year price cycle driven by the asset’s so-called halving events. A “predictable rhythm”, as Patrick Heusser, head of lending at Sentora (the company previously called IntoTheBlock), puts it.

But as Bitcoin hit record highs of $122,000 this July, many analysts now believe the cycle, which often led to a period of accumulation, huge rally, and then a crash, is broken — or at the very least, fundamentally changed.

So, what do the experts say? And how does this affect the everyday Bitcoin investor? Here’s a quick explainer.

What is the Bitcoin Cycle Theory?

The Bitcoin Cycle Theory is based on a repeated pattern that starts with a halving event — an in-built mechanism that occurs every 210,000 blocks or every four years, according to Ryan Lee, chief analyst at Bitget Research.

With each halving, the reward miners receive for verifying transactions on the network is reduced by 50%, slowing down the rate at which new coins enter circulation while “creating a supply shock.”

In the past, Lee tells Cryptonews, this “supply-demand imbalance usually preceded a price explosion,” with each cycle reaching a crescendo about 12 to 18 months after the halving.

As already noted, the cycle would follow the order: bull market, a peak, and a subsequent multi-year bear market. Lee says the cycles occurred in 2013, 2017, and 2021, which made a predictable pattern. Not so in 2025.

Sentora’s Heusser cited a mathematical model called the “Bitcoin Power Law Theory,” which was developed by physicist Giovanni Santostasi. The model views Bitcoin’s price as following a long-term growth curve scaled by time, with halvings acting as disruptions within that broader trajectory.

He says past BTC price action aligns with Santostasi’s model’s long-term fit, “where price deviations during cycles revert to the curve over time.” However, issues like regulation and inflation have tempered the intensity.

Image: Sentora/X

How Has It Influenced the Bitcoin Price?

Until recently, Bitcoin’s historical performance appeared to validate the theory.

For example, after the November 2012 halving, the price went from $12 to more than $1,000 in 2013, an 8,200% surge, according to Emmanuel Cardozo, market analyst at tokenization platform Brickken.

In July 2016, Bitcoin was halved again, and the price climbed from $650 to $20,000 by late 2017. From the 2020 halving, he says, Bitcoin soared 760% to an all-time high of $69,000 by November 2021.

“These gains were enormous, but they weren’t random; they were tightly correlated with Bitcoin’s supply reductions, retail inflows, and macroeconomic backdrops,” Cardozo told Cryptonews, adding:

“In fact, when you overlay China’s M2 money supply with these cycles, the peaks in 2017 and 2021 also align with liquidity expansions, showing that monetary conditions helped amply the cycle effect.”

Bitcoin tracked previous cycle trends after the April 2024 halving, almost doubling in price to $117,500 as of this writing. This time, the pattern is far less predictable and far more subdued, Cardozo said.

“Bitcoin’s behavior [now] looks different. Instead of a retail-driven run-up, we’ve had steady accumulation from institutions. It’s less reactive, more measured.”

The Brickken analyst noted that daily transaction volumes have also dropped sharply, saying, ” All this points to a market that’s maturing, and while the halving still matters, it’s no longer the main factor.”

Pauline Shangett, chief strategy officer at crypto exchange ChangeNOW, concurred, telling Cryptonews that the four-year cycle has been “a pretty solid way to make sense of Bitcoin’s past behavior,” but things have changed.

“We’re seeing a more mature market now, with way more variables in play, like macro trends, global policy shifts, real institutional involvement,” she said. “Institutional players … bring more control, [and] less volatility.”

Is the Bitcoin Cycle Theory Dead?

“Yes,” Heusser, the Sentora head of lending, stated.

“The traditional 4-year Bitcoin cycle appears dead or at least significantly broken down, evolving into a less predictable, more sustained growth pattern rather than rigid boom-bust phases tied strictly to halvings.”

He attributed the change to “Bitcoin’s maturation as an asset class.” The 2024 halving reduced miner rewards to 3.125 BTC, but the supply impact is a mere fraction of Bitcoin’s more than $2 trillion market capitalization.

“Daily supply reduced by only 450 BTC,” says Heusser. “[That’s] a negligible shock” when compared to Bitcoin’s high trading volumes and the billions in inflows from U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), he said.

Institutional adoption is perhaps the biggest force challenging Bitcoin’s four-year cycle. Since the approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. in January last year, products like BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and MicroStrategy’s corporate acquisitions have gobbled more than 1 million BTC, the equivalent of nearly a decade’s supply.

“That’s not a speculative trade, that’s structural absorption of supply,” said Brickken analyst Cardozo. “These large holders are shaping a different kind of cycle which will be slower, steadier, and deeply tied to institutional flows.”

Unlike retail, corporate investors tend not to flip their Bitcoin holdings for a quick buck. They’re locking up supply for the long term.

Heusser said institutional adoption is “decoupling prices from pure halving narratives.” As liquidity cycles and institutional flows dominate, he sees bull phases expanding to between five and 10 years.

“This isn’t a complete invalidation but an evolution, as the Power Law’s long-term trend remains intact amid reduced short-term predictability.”

Lee, the Bitget Research analyst, said, “the core drivers behind Bitcoin’s past four-year cycles have weakened”, meaning the halving influence has diminished over time.

“This structural decrease was compounded by new macroeconomic forces such as institutional participation and regulatory clarity,” he detailed.

For Cardozo, the four-year cycle isn’t dead. “It’s being overridden by much bigger, longer-term forces,” he said. “It’s evolving.”

What This Means for Retail Investors

The end of the Bitcoin cycle, or its evolution, will have huge implications for regular investors, experts say, adding that “patience, discipline, and education are clearly the new alpha.”

“Retail investors need to rethink their [old] playbook,” says Cardozo. “The old strategy of buying after a halving and selling 12 to 18 months later might not be as effective, at least not with the same precision.”

But it doesn’t mean Bitcoin is no longer a profitable investment for those investors with a long-term view. On the contrary, analysts say a maturing market could offer better, more stable returns, just over longer periods.

Lee explains:

“This new phase is shaping up to be a steady upward trend rather than a sharp super-cycle. The fading influence of the four-year pattern could lead to a more gradual and sustained price growth, with less of the extreme volatility that characterized earlier cycles.”

Analysts now favor a move toward strategies like dollar-cost averaging (DCA) over speculative timing, fundamentals, as well as tracking macro indicators like central bank policy and institutional inflows.

According to Heusser, while previous crashes were more brutal, with drawdowns of 80% to 90%, “reduced cycle rigidity could mean shallower corrections” of between 30% to 50%. He said institutions will act like “buffers,” providing “consistent inflows.”

Not only will this “stabilize prices,” he says, it also ensures that Bitcoin “behaves more like a traditional asset with sustained booms over years rather than sharp peaks and crashes.”

But the Sentora executive said the lack of a huge rally may limit short-term gains for retail traders. Without the halving as a reliable price signal, timing becomes harder.

Traders who once rode the halving hype could find themselves mistiming macro-driven entries or steady uptrends. He said if liquidity concentrates in BTC due to institutional involvement, altcoin season may never come.

“For retail, the key is adapting: emphasize fundamentals (e.g., monitoring ETF flows, miner capitulation, and on-chain metrics), diversify into correlated assets, and adopt a value-based approach aligned with the Power Law’s long-term growth, rather than chasing short-term hype.”

Going into 2026, Cardozo noted that early profit-takers “might miss the bulk” of the coming gradual rally into next year. He thinks recent price increases will not lead to “a clear blow-off top.”

“On the other end, those waiting for the classic post-market top crash may also be left behind if the market’s downside risk is now absorbed by institutional demand,” he said.

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