Is the four-year cycle still effective? The market truths from seven top crypto investors

In 2024, after the Bitcoin halving, the price rose from $60,000 to $126,000, with gains significantly lower than historical cycles. Meanwhile, altcoins underperformed, and macro liquidity and policy became the new decisive factors in the market. A theory revered for 18 years is beginning to waver: Is the four-year cycle of Bitcoin still valid?

To explore this, we invited seven seasoned practitioners—including a fund founder who previously worked at Alibaba’s family office, an institutional investor managing over $110 billion, on-chain data analysts, and mining industry observers—to engage in an in-depth dialogue spanning optimism and caution. Their perspectives both clash and converge on a consensus: the four-year cycle is evolving from an “iron law” into a “soft expectation.”

What is the four-year cycle we often refer to?

The core mechanism of the four-year cycle is Bitcoin’s block reward halving every four years. Halving means a reduction in new supply, changes in miner behavior, and long-term price support. This provides the most mathematically grounded narrative foundation.

However, some practitioners believe that the four-year cycle is essentially a dual-engine model of political cycles + liquidity cycles. This cycle coincides with the U.S. presidential election cycle and the rhythm of global central banks releasing liquidity. Historically, markets only watched the halving because Bitcoin’s new supply share was still high. Now, Bitcoin has entered the macro asset sequence, with the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet expansion rate and global M2 growth being the true drivers of the cycle.

In other words, the essence of the four-year cycle has changed: from supply-driven to liquidity-driven.

In this 2024-2028 cycle, Bitcoin’s new supply is only 600,000 coins, negligible compared to the 19 million in circulation. The new selling pressure is less than $6 billion, easily absorbed by Wall Street.

Is the four-year cycle a regular pattern or a self-fulfilling prophecy?

This is a paradoxical question: when everyone believes the cycle exists, their actions reinforce it.

The consensus among many practitioners is: the four-year cycle is both a product of objective mechanisms and market narratives, but the dominant forces are shifting at different stages.

In the era where supply impact is strongest, the cycle has a clear mathematical basis. But as market capitalization expands, the marginal effect of new supply diminishes. Using logarithmic growth, the price increase after each halving is decreasing—an irreversible trend.

With the influx of institutions and spot ETFs, the cycle shifts from “single-point explosion” to “distributed release.” Bitcoin’s rise is no longer concentrated immediately after halving but is extended before and after. In other words, the narrative’s weight is increasing, while the mechanism’s influence is waning.

From a behavioral market perspective, changes in participant structure also reshape the cycle’s meaning. When institutions are the main players, they tend to pre-position based on cycle expectations; retail investors, being the majority, tend to FOMO and push prices higher. The cycle’s manifestation differs sharply between these forces.

Therefore, a more accurate statement is: the four-year cycle has shifted from a hard constraint to a soft expectation.

Why are the gains during this cycle so “mild”?

From $60,000 to $126,000, this increase has indeed been modest historically. There are three reasons:

First, diminishing marginal returns are inevitable. All growing markets go through this. Bitcoin’s market cap is now in the trillions; doubling requires exponential new capital inflows. The incremental capital needed to go from hundreds of billions to trillions is vastly greater than from billions to hundreds of billions. This is not a cycle failure but a sign of market maturity.

Second, spot ETFs have changed the price discovery rhythm. Previously, Bitcoin’s all-time high was driven by retail marginal liquidity post-halving. This cycle, $50 billion in ETF funds have already flowed in before and around the halving, pre-absorbing supply shocks. As a result, gains are spread over a longer period rather than forming a steep parabola.

Third, institutions have optimized their holdings. Instead of waiting for a breakout point, they build positions gradually to lock in chips. This strategy suppresses volatility at single points.

Key insight: Halving still works but is now a secondary catalyst rather than the primary driver. The real determinants are macro liquidity, institutional allocations, RWA adoption, and policy environment.

What stage are we in now?

This is where opinions diverge most.

Pessimists’ view: We are in the early stage of a bear market. The logic stems from mining costs. Last cycle, mining cost was around $20,000, with Bitcoin at $69,000, and miner profit margins about 70%. This cycle, after halving, costs are close to $70,000, with Bitcoin at $126,000, and profit margins below 40%. This reflects declining industry yields each cycle—normal for a nearly 20-year-old industry. Moreover, high-risk capital has not flooded into crypto as in 2020-2021 but has shifted more into AI-related assets.

Technical camp’s view: We are not in a bear market but a technical bear. The weekly chart has broken below the MA50, which has happened before, but it doesn’t mean the cycle is over. A true cyclical bear market requires macroeconomic recession confirmation. The total stablecoin supply is still growing, serving as a liquidity indicator. Only if stablecoins stop growing for more than two months can a bear market be confirmed.

Macro camp (majority): We are in the correction phase of a late-stage bull market, not a bear. The U.S. cannot choose tighter monetary policy due to debt pressures, which force the Fed to continue easing. The rate-cut cycle has just begun, and liquidity headwinds are not yet reversed. As long as global M2 continues to expand, crypto, as the most liquidity-sensitive asset, will not enter a deep bear market. From leverage ratios, futures positions relative to market cap are not extreme; short-term volatility does not necessarily signal a bear.

Consensus: The cycle has become less clear, but this “divergence” itself is the most authentic feature of this stage.

Where are the future bull drivers?

If the four-year cycle no longer dominates, where is the long-term support?

First, institutional adoption of Bitcoin as “digital gold.” When sovereign funds, pension funds, and hedge funds include Bitcoin in their balance sheets, the logic shifts from a single cycle event to a long-term hedge against fiat devaluation. This creates a spiral-like upward structure—similar to the long-term logic of gold.

Second, real economic penetration of stablecoins. Compared to Bitcoin, stablecoins have a broader user base and more direct application paths: payments, settlements, cross-border capital flows. Stablecoins are becoming the “interface layer” of new financial infrastructure. This means crypto growth is gradually shifting from speculation to integration with real-world finance.

Third, continued institutional allocations. Whether via spot ETFs or RWA tokenization, ongoing institutional participation will promote a “compound interest” growth pattern—reducing volatility but maintaining an upward trend.

Fourth, sustained global liquidity easing. As long as the Fed and other central banks keep expanding their balance sheets, long-term liquidity remains ample, making deep bear markets unlikely. The future pattern will resemble gold: “long-term oscillation-uptrend-long-term oscillation,” rather than traditional bull-bear switches.

Of course, some warn that if systemic risks emerge in 2026-2027, crypto assets may not be immune.

Will the altcoin season return?

The traditional “altcoin season” was the third act of the four-year cycle. But this cycle, it has been absent.

Reasons:

Bitcoin’s rising dominance has led risk assets into a “risk-off” environment. Institutions prefer blue-chip assets. Although the altcoin ecosystem has expanded, the total token count is at an all-time high—yet, even with ample macro liquidity, widespread gains are elusive. DeFi and NFTs have not generated new narratives or killer apps. What might appear are only limited “selective altcoin seasons.”

In the future, altcoin performance will resemble the US stock M7 phenomenon—top few coins continue outperforming, small-cap coins occasionally perform but struggle to sustain. The key shift is that the market is moving from “focusing on the economy” to “reporting the economy”—retail-driven traffic competition is giving way to institution-driven fundamentals.

Opportunities for small coins depend on real utility and income, not just narratives.

Top practitioners’ actual holdings strategies

The data here best reveal their true judgments:

Defensive types have significantly reduced their altcoin holdings, often maintaining half positions. Core holdings are BTC and ETH, with cash managed in gold rather than USD to hedge fiat risk. They prefer high-certainty assets like hard assets and exchange stocks.

Strict risk-control advocates stick to a 50% cash rule, with core holdings in BTC and ETH, and no more than 10% in altcoins. They have exited gold (around $3,500). They hold a small short position on US stocks with high AI valuations.

Aggressive allocators are mostly fully invested but with concentrated structures: mainly ETH, supplemented by stablecoin logic, and holdings in BTC, BCH, BNB, etc. They do not bet on cycles but focus on long-term structures like public chains, stablecoins, and exchanges.

Pessimists have almost completely liquidated their crypto holdings, including selling near $110,000. They plan to re-enter only below $70,000, expecting to hold cash for the next two years.

Shared action: avoid leverage, trade infrequently, and prioritize discipline over judgment.

Is now the time to bottom fish?

This is the most practical question, but the most cautious answer.

Aggressive voices believe the true bottom is below $70,000, and we are still far from it. But most practitioners advise: this is not the window for aggressive bottom-fishing, but a good time for gradual accumulation and allocation.

A proven strategy is to start dollar-cost averaging from half of the previous all-time high. This logic has worked in every bull market. Currently, it requires waiting, but the window may open after 1-2 months of wide-range oscillation.

The most common advice: avoid leverage, stay away from frequent trading, and replace speculation with discipline and patience.

Final observation:

The decline of the four-year cycle is not a failure of crypto market logic but a sign of market maturity. As Bitcoin evolves from a “speculative asset” into an “asset allocation tool,” and as institutions take center stage, the cycle itself is being redefined.

The future will not lack volatility, but the drivers of volatility will shift from single events to a complex interplay of factors—liquidity, policy, institutional allocations, and real-world applications. This makes the market more intricate and more authentic.