Following an upward trajectory to create a new all-time high last week, bitcoin (BTC), the world’s leading cryptocurrency, has suddenly turned bearish. Earlier this week, it slumped to $117,000 per BTC, stripping nearly $1 billion from leverage traders. Consequently, many who believed 2025 would be a bullish year, based on the four-year cycle concept, have questioned their assumptions.
Bitcoin’s four-year cycle is a theory that suggests its price soars massively after each halving, which occurs every four years. This pump is now followed by a price crash and recovery, all within a short period.
The executives of these popular crypto firms have stated reasons why they believe the four-year cycle is no longer in effect.
Ki Young Ju – CryptoQuant CEO
Ki Young Ju, CEO of CryptoQuant, a blockchain analytics platform, had earlier predicted that 2025 would be a bullish year for BTC and the crypto market, citing the four-year cycle factor. However, following unexpected happenings in the crypto market this year, he now cherishes the idea that the “four-year cycle is dead.”
#Bitcoin cycle theory is dead.
My predictions were based on it—buy when whales accumulate, sell when retail joins. But that pattern no longer holds.
Last cycle, whales sold to retail. This time, old whales sell to new long-term whales. Institutional adoption is bigger than we…
— Ki Young Ju (@ki_young_ju) July 24, 2025
Young Ju noted that the previous four-year cycles were possible because retailers and traders were integral to the market movement. However, this cycle is of a different kind because old-time whales sell their holdings only for newer whales to scoop up, thus the number of holder outweigh the number of traders in the market.
Matt Hougan – Bitwise CIO
Via a recent post on the X social media platform, the CIO of the famous U.S. asset manager and exchange-traded fund (ETF) issuer Bitwise noted that the four-year cycle is dead, stating that the factors that contributed to the four-year cycle have weakened.
This includes interest rates in various influential locations globally. During the 2018 and 2022 bull runs, the interest rates were negative. However, the interest rate cycle is positive for crypto. He also noted that the significance of the halving has decreased over time and that, due to improved regulation in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, blow-up risk has weakened in strength.
Furthermore, Hougan highlighted that the recent developments in the market, including the approval of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), broader institutional and national bitcoin adoption, and the regulatory process that began in January 2025, are trends that’ll last for an extended period, mitigating the “four-year cycle forces.”
Meanwhile, he noted that Wall Street has begun investing in crypto and plans to invest billions in the coming months, making 2026 a potentially good year.
