I used to think the 4 year cycle was done for good, and we might be stuck in some endless super cycle, or, even better, we’d never see those massive 50% drops again.
We've experienced ETFs, helpful regulations, big players piling into digital assets, and rumors about countries buying up crypto.
But after the events from 10/10 and the crash in February, it seems like the general opinion is that Bitcoin is set to hit its low this October, just like in past cycles.
A lot of folks on X and YouTube, especially influencers and “traders,” are sharing this view, but let’s be real, that doesn't totally reflect us HODLers who hold on for the long haul.
Looking at how BTC’s price seems to be following the cycle pattern heading into 2025 and the start of 2026, it looks like this 4 year cycle is still holding up.
Considering all the favorable conditions we've been waiting for finally showed up this time but still didn't break the cycle, I’m curious what everyone here thinks about the next 4-8 years.
I've been in BTC since the early days, and while I totally believe in holding, I gotta admit I’m not getting any younger, and I will need to cash out eventually. That’s why I’m bringing this up.
Most of you people are deceived because you think well known people's words wiloukd be true lehike neglecting what people like me posted about the 4 year cycle on this forum.
4 years cycle can not just be over like that, there is reducing volatility, and there will be reducing volatility in the cycle which will make it fades away gradually, but not at once.
When I noticed what bitcoin ETFs actually is, I know the cycle is not yet over just like that. Companies hold the bitcoin but their customers control the price. We should not compare them with public treasury companies and governments.
If you have been in bitcoin since early days and have been holding until now and plan to hold for a few more years, I think youre already in a good position in terms of profit are you not? Lots of people who save up in bitcoin do it for retirement so if you are nearing that age, its okay to sell already. The next cycle would most definitely be the biggest yet so hold on for more.
Ever heard about diminishing returns?
The past are patterns doesn't mean they are certainty about the future
The power law at least shows this to some extent.
and what's the benefit of never selling? It's mother you either use it now or later.
It's not like my feelings will change how the market behaves. Rather than accepting or disbelieving the trend, I'd rather figure out how to maximize my returns for the next bull run, or whenever the market reacts strongly to bullish sentiment. If anything, I tend to be on the side that most popular narrative are self-fulfilling prophecy to some extent, so unless I have enough influence to counter them, there's no need to dwell whether the pattern still exist or not.
I don't think so. Cycles are changing.
Last cycle it was the first time that we hit ATH before the halving.
We are facing less volatility. Bitcoin didn't even double its price in the cycle, and now we haven't face even a 50% drop.
I think things are changing, and bitcoin might be more correlated now to world wide events, such as geopolitics, than halving cycles.
What that I care most about is to hodl, I know that bitcoin will continue to increase in price and value, I do not need to be distracted with 4 year cycle or no more 4 year cycle.
There was a 50% drop, the ATH was $126000 but bitcoin dipped to $60000 in February of this year which was slightly more than 50%. But if bitcoin do not fall below $60000, it will be the least volatile cycle after ATH.
Are you sure?
Firstly such discussions repeatedly appear.
seriously... is the BTC 4-year cycle just a myth now?
Next you must learn about Bitcoin market history, cycle and corrections from ATH to bottoms.
Bitcoin historical corrections fro all time highs.
Fortunately, if you can become a long term investor and can hold your bitcoin in several years, profit is quite guaranteed.
https://hodl.camp/
The 4 year cycle is a popular assumption and probably has some psychological influence on price as a self fulfilling prophecy, but is still pseudoscience without any convincing theory behind it. Halvings, if they had any influence, could only explain a very small part of the bullish phase of the "cycle".
Even if there seems to be a regularity in the cycle tops and these indeed since 2013 are happening every 4 years, there is no similarity between the cycles.
Compare the early bull markets: 2015 (after the first recovery, almost flat), 2019 (extremely bullish, then slightly bearish - completely unexplainable by the halving-driven theory), and 2023 (very mildly bullish but with acceleration at the end - but the pump was news driven due to the ETFs.).
2021 is also an interesting year: almost all altcoins peaked in May, and Bitcoin peaked in November, and there was a 50% crash in-between.
And if 60k was the bottom of this cycle 2026 would also be "strange".
This is true; things are changing. More investors mean more people who are affected by or pay attention to world events, but I feel bitcoin is still more correlated to halving cycles than world events. I see it as one more factor that determines the supply and demand of bitcoin. A reduced supply, with the demand staying the same, will always make the price go up, and most of these people would take profit when they feel like they've gotten a required price. And the cycle continues again. Halving approaches, people buy, after the halving, people take profits. I don't mean other events don't have an impact, but the biggest and most constant is the halving cycle.
Well, OP, I mean the 4 year cycle is clearly fading, and the reason it is fading is because the days of crazy retail booms are gone.
The bear markets used to be 75-85% drops, this one was 52% and only took what like 4 months from the peak to bottom out.
So sure we can say the 4 year market cycle is technically still holding, but barely so.
Honestly at this point I think the 4 year cycle is only sort of holding on because enough traders are trading the four year cycle to cause it to dip at that time, a self-fulfilling situation, but this is nothing like the days of 2014/2015 or 2018/2019, or even post-LUNA collapse (and then post-FTX collapse) in 2022.
The old four year cycle was caused by the halving starting a gradual supply crunch and the price rising and then word spreading on that price rise and that building up to a crescendo of crazy exponential influx of new people who had just heard of bitcoin for the first time. Obviously that isn't the case anymore and hasn't been for years. Not to mention the fact that the changes in newly minted bitcoin rates at the halvings are so small now they really don't affect much at all. There's already less than a million bitcoin to go so the halving supply crunch doesn't account for much these days.
To really account for everything, I'd say it's a mix of enough traders still assuming it's gonna happen and selling just in case, and this time around the US going to s**t making investors afraid to get into what they view as risky, and combined with the fact that a lot of people are focused on the AI hype bubble as the investment of the day now so that is bleeding some money that would have kept going into Bitcoin, actually one more factor that drove the sudden rise to $100k in late 2024 but never materialized - the hype that the US would start a strategic reserve buying up tons of Bitcoin which turned out to be just election nonsense and once people realized it was all talk, combined with the cratering economy caused by the guy telling those lies, kinda put a damper on any bitcoin rise for the time being as Bitcoin only managed to go $15k higher all last year (which according to the four year cycle should have been a boom year) compared to the US reserve hyped fueled end of 2024 rise.
So like yeah you can kinda sorta say it's still intact but it's bleeding out, and it isn't convincing the way it used to be when it was the dominant feature of the bitcoin market causing giant booms and busts like clockwork.
The decline cycle almost always exists because it reflects a saturated market. I think many new influencers believe that thanks to Bitcoin it will always go up. I am still waiting for another drop. The current situation is indeed a bit different. We understand how large institutions like countries and ETFs have made Bitcoin have a different appeal. I believe that with the existence of ETFs, and then Iran starting to adopt it as an alternative payment method, this cycle changes a little. Does this cycle break down? I think not.
The past remains the past, and it doesn't mean that what happened in the past will keep happening in the present, if four years cycle still keeps repeating itself it doesn't mean it will remain the same in the future, I've learnt to have a strategy excluding four years cycle in other not to be deceived in the future, it's not as if you or any bitcoin investors can't do well without this four years cycle, if you are in for long term why should you be bothered by the four years cycle theory? Do no bother yourself about it, focus on what you are accumulating and the future is better strategize on this rather than the four years cycle.
Never believed in any of these cycle stuff myself since these are simply random patterns which may seem organized and consistent at times, but they are all truly random. Halvings matter more to me since supply decreases leading to increased demand and prices.
Don't waste your time chasing such patterns people.
To understand what is happening with Bitcoin, you have to dive deep into the rabbit hole of the Austrian School of Economics.First, you need to explore what money is, what fiat currency is, and how money emerges on a free market This is not something you can understand overnight. It takes a lot of time, reading, learning, and serious study to fully grasp it.
In short, Bitcoin is going through monetization , the stage where an asset gradually becomes money. This process is not smooth or linear. It is highly volatile because the market is still trying to discover Bitcoins true price.To someone looking at it short term, Bitcoin may seem like a series of huge waves and crashes. But if you look at the logarithmic chart, you will see a much clearer long-term trend.Some mathematicians and physicists argue that Bitcoins long-term price trend follows a power law.It is very complicated to explain, but try Googling it and watching some YouTube videos about what the Bitcoin Power Law is.
Here you have a chart where you can look at information about the Power Law mod
https://charts.bitbo.io/long-term-power-law/
At the final stage of monetization, you will no longer need to sell your Bitcoin. You will simply be able to spend it, because Bitcoin will be accepted globally as a medium of exchange, and prices will increasingly be measured in satoshis.But we probably will not be alive by then. This will happen over several generations.Gold did not become money overnight either. It took thousands of years. Bitcoin will need much less time to become widely accepted.
The four year cycle is mostly considered effective because of two major things. One is the halving event and that obviously is pretty fixed and constant another thing too is the psychological effects of that halving event. You can't just expect people to out of the blue ignore the fact that we are going to have a slash in supply rate.
Infact, basic economics already supports the idea of the four year cycle. I think the focus of people should be how dependent bitcoin is gradually being on economic conditions because it's the clear basis of the bear we are experiencing.
I was also one of those who thought the 4-year cycle is over. Although there's still a possibility that it's indeed over as we're still approaching the middle of the year, every single week and month that the price remains far from its ATH I'm reminded of the reality that the cycle remains in effect.
But, again, the possibility remains. We're still in May of 2026. Bitcoin could change direction any minute from now. It has surprised us countless of times in the past. It can surprise us again. There are still 7 months left in 2026. For all we know, another ATH might come in the last quarter. Possibilities remain open.
Regardless, I'm here for the long term.
Personally I never really believed that the four years circle is over, which is why we have to be very optimistic about our long term future investments.
The debate of the four years circle being over will never go away from bitcoin investors, which I assume that its better to focus and keep buying and accumulating bitcoin.
However I dont really see any importance in trying to speculate and understand the importance of the circle when you can just keep buying consistently through DCA techniques.
That is okay, each of us will have the point to sell when we have to. You'll still have to hold for quite a while for that years you've mentioned.
We're all getting older and we have also to enjoy that profit from the holdings that we have. Don't feel guilty about it.
What's important is that you'll still have to hold some of it so that if ever it goes higher, you'll still have some in hold.
When certain market patterns repeat themselves over and over again, people, whether consciously or not, begin to expect that they will occur again in the future. The same was true for cycles, but as you know, last year the market delivered an unpleasant surprise to those who were expecting an alt season in the fall, which cast doubt on the relevance of four-year cycles.