Author: Bull Theory

Compiled by: Yuliya, PANews

Is Bitcoin's 4-year cycle still valid? This was the most predictable crash in cryptocurrency history, yet no one was prepared.

At the peak of the 2025 bull market, one of the most common arguments in the crypto space was: the four-year cycle is dead, institutional entry has changed everything, and the old rules no longer apply. However, Bitcoin almost exactly peaked as predicted, subsequently falling 50%, and is now where the cycle framework predicted it should be. Therefore, let's talk frankly about what actually happened.

The four-year cycle didn't die; it's just that the buyers are different now.

Throughout 2024 and early 2025, the crypto market was rife with the narrative that Bitcoin ETFs had changed everything, institutions were buying in, and the traditional four-year cycle driven by halvings and retail FOMO was no longer valid. This was a supercycle, and the bear market was over.

The reasoning sounds very convincing. Bitcoin hit an all-time high before the halving even occurred, which is unprecedented. ETF inflows broke records. Michael Saylor is buying billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin every week. Mainstream financial media are also reporting on Bitcoin as a compliant asset class for the first time. The overall market atmosphere suggests that the old rules no longer apply.

However, Bitcoin peaked at $126,296 on October 6, 2025, and then began to fall. Currently, its price has dropped approximately 50% from its high, the Fear & Greed Index is in a state of extreme fear, and a death cross has appeared on the chart. That cycle, thought to be dead, is playing out with the same precision as in 2013, 2017, and 2021.

The four-year cycle isn't dead; it's just become more insidious. The reason it's become so insidious is why no one foresaw the top, and why no topping indicator issued a warning. This is the most important point for understanding where we are now and where things will go in the future.

Before delving into this, it's necessary to understand what cycles actually are and why they can last for over a decade. Those who deny the existence of cycles aren't entirely wrong. Markets have indeed changed, but the cycles haven't been broken; rather, they've changed along with the market.

Every four years, a halving event reduces the number of newly mined Bitcoins by 50%. Miners are the largest and most consistent sellers of Bitcoin; they mine Bitcoins and sell them to cover operating costs. When a halving cuts their production in half, the amount of Bitcoins dumped onto the market each day drops dramatically. If demand remains constant or increases, the price will inevitably rise. This is the fundamental mechanism behind Bitcoin price fluctuations; it's not a theory, but rather a matter of supply and demand.

Looking back at all the halvings since 2012, the bull and bear market cycles of Bitcoin prices have been repeating themselves without exception.

Four cycles, four halvings. Each one shares the same basic structure. And this is precisely what those who proclaim the death of cycles overlook: cycles don't care about narratives. They operate on the principle of supply and demand, and this principle doesn't change simply because institutions start buying through ETFs. The April 2024 halving arrived as scheduled. Bitcoin peaked 535 days later on October 6, 2025. This falls precisely within the historical window of 480 to 550 days after each halving.

The cycle never dies. It just looks different on the surface because the buyers are different. And this difference— institutional demand replacing retail demand—is precisely why no topping indicators are triggered, and why most people who focus on topping signals completely miss the top.

Track these four Bitcoin cycles, recording tops, bottoms, death crosses, golden crosses, and the 200-week moving average.

There's a recurring, underappreciated pattern in these cycles: bottoms always appear approximately one year after tops. While not exactly one year, this range is remarkably tight. After peaking in 2013, the bottom arrived 410 days later. After 2017, it was 363 days. After 2021, it was 376 days. If this pattern holds true now, the bottom of the current cycle will likely fall between late September and mid-November 2026.

There's a clear trend in the decline data: 86%, 84%, 78%, while now it's likely between 50% and 65%. Each bear market is shallower than the last. This isn't accidental. It reflects a maturing asset: it now has institutional buyers who won't panic sell, a regulated ETF market creating structural demand, and companies holding Bitcoin as a reserve on their balance sheets. As the buyer base matures, volatility is being compressed.

This cycle also saw something unprecedented: Bitcoin hit a new all-time high before the halving . In March 2024, exactly one month before the April 20th halving, Bitcoin reached $73,581, breaking the previous all-time high of $69,000 set in 2021. This was a new all-time high, but not the top of the cycle. Every previous cycle eventually peaked a few months after the halving, and this time was no exception—the true cycle peak occurred on October 6th, 2025, at $126,296, well after the April 2024 halving. The difference was that hitting a new all-time high before the halving was unprecedented. This was due to the approval of the spot Bitcoin ETF in January 2024, which brought institutional demand into the market before the halving, advancing the cycle in time and confusing many who track the typical post-halving timeline.

What exactly happened to retail investors during this cycle?

To understand why Bitcoin peaked without any common signals, you must understand what happened to retail investor funds in the 18 months leading up to the peak. In short: most retail investor funds were exhausted before Bitcoin reached $126,000.

In every previous Bitcoin bull market, retail investors have played a specific role. They provided the final fuel, creating the final frenzy and parabolic surges. It is the FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) sentiment among retail investors that pushes Bitcoin from a reasonable price to an extreme price in the final stages of each cycle. This is precisely why top indicators are triggered—these tools were originally designed to measure retail behavior, not institutional behavior. Without retail euphoria, there would be no triggering of these indicators.

Throughout this cycle, retail investors have never appeared in Bitcoin on a large scale. This is not because they did not participate in the crypto market; they did, but they were "looted" elsewhere first.

Memecoin's liquidity trap

The biggest factor that destroyed retail liquidity during this cycle was the extreme ease with which Memecoin could be created and issued. Token issuance platforms (especially on Solana) allowed anyone to issue a token in minutes at virtually no cost. By mid-2025, the total number of tokens had skyrocketed from approximately 10,000 to 20,000 at its peak in 2021 to over 10 million.

Consider what this means for a retail investor trying to navigate this market. In 2021, you probably had 200 tokens worth serious consideration—these were real projects with users, revenue, or at least a solid team and product roadmap. The path from "I want to invest in cryptocurrency" to "I bought ETH and SOL" is very short and obvious. That's where retail money is concentrated, and that's why ETH could rise to $4,800 and SOL to $260.

But in 2025, you'll have to choose from 10 million options. The vast majority of these tokens are designed with only one purpose: to extract funds from retail buyers as quickly as possible and transfer them to insiders. The operation isn't complicated: create a token, artificially inflate its price, sell it when retail investors buy, and then cash out and run . This practice is repeated thousands of times every day throughout the ecosystem.

In 2021, retail investors faced a manageable number of options, most of which were legitimate projects. By 2025, however, they will face millions of options, the vast majority of which are structures designed to fleece their capital. The outcome is predictable: retail funds will enter the crypto market in 2025, but the majority will never flow into Bitcoin or quality altcoins; instead, they will be drained by the Memecoin interest group.

The involvement of influential public figures further amplified this problem. Numerous high-profile individuals from the political, entertainment, and social media spheres launched their own Memecoins during this cycle. The pattern was always the same: a token bearing a celebrity's name was issued amidst massive hype, retail investors bought in hoping to profit from the fame, causing the price to soar, while insiders and early holders sold at the peak. The token then plummeted by 80% to 95% within days or weeks. Retail investors were left with tokens worthless, worth only a fraction of their initial purchase price.

This happened repeatedly throughout 2024 and 2025. Each time, a significant portion of retail liquidity in the ecosystem was permanently wiped out. Those who lost money on these projects didn't use their remaining funds to buy Bitcoin; they either left the market entirely or had no funds left to invest.

VC's high FDV and low circulating supply

The second major factor that destroyed retail investor funds was the issuance structure of new tokens during this cycle. This point has been discussed less, but its destructive power is equally enormous.

In 2021, new crypto projects typically launched with a fully diluted valuation (FDV) of $100 million to $1 billion. This left real upside potential for buyers in the open market. A project that launched with a $200 million FDV and grew to $2 billion could have yielded a 10x return for retail investors. That's what people remember 2021 for—the stories of "I bought this token early and turned $5,000 into $50,000."

During this cycle, the structure completely changed. Venture capital funds raised billions of dollars to invest in crypto infrastructure in 2021 and 2022. By 2024 and 2025, their portfolio companies were ready to issue tokens, and VCs needed to demonstrate returns to their limited partners (LPs). As a result, projects began launching with fully diluted valuations of $5 billion, $10 billion, or even $20 billion, while the actual circulating supply on the first day of launch was only 5% to 15%.

What this means in reality: Retail investors see a token trading at what appears to be a $500 million market cap and believe there's room for further growth. However, the true fully diluted valuation at this price is $10 billion, and 85% of the tokens are sitting in VC wallets, waiting to unlock over the next two to four years. More tokens unlock and are dumped every month. The price faces a structural ceiling because supply pressure never stops. Retail buyers are essentially buying into a continuous sell-off they're unaware of.

An independent study of 118 tokens issued in 2025 revealed that 84.7% of them traded below their initial offering price, with a median price drop of 71%. These were not obscure projects; many were listed on major exchanges and enjoyed substantial marketing budgets and media exposure. Yet, they still lost much of their value because their token economics were designed to benefit insiders at the expense of public buyers.

The combined effect of Memecoin and high FDV VC project launches was that retail crypto funds were massively wiped out before Bitcoin even approached its cyclical peak. By October 2025, most retail participants who entered the market in 2024 would either have suffered heavy losses or been completely eliminated. There would be no more liquidity left to rotate into Bitcoin. There would be no more FOMO. The fuel that propelled the final, frenzied peak would be gone.

Where should retail investors' money go?

The 2021 cycle worked because retail investor funds followed a clear path: buy Bitcoin → Bitcoin surges → rotation to large-cap altcoins → large-cap altcoins surge → rotation to mid-cap altcoins → mid-cap altcoins surge → rotation to small-cap coins. Funds poured down a predictable market capitalization chain, with returns generated at each level.

But in 2025, this waterfall effect never materialized. The massive retail buying of Bitcoin never occurred; their funds had already been exhausted. Throughout almost the entire bull market, Bitcoin's market capitalization remained above 60%. The altcoin season index peaked at 78% for about three weeks in September 2025, before immediately crashing. There was only a brief window during which altcoins outperformed Bitcoin, after which Bitcoin's share quickly rebounded to above 60%.

The altcoin season that people were expecting didn't materialize, not because the market was wrong, but because the mechanism that generates an altcoin season—the downward rotation of retail investor funds along the market capitalization chain—has become ineffective. The funds have already been drained.

How did the institution change the structure of the entire cycle?

While retail investors are losing money on Memecoin and VC token offerings, something entirely new is happening with Bitcoin. For the first time in the asset's history, a regulated institutional product is injecting billions of dollars into Bitcoin according to a structured, ongoing timeline.

The approval of a spot Bitcoin ETF in January 2024 was more than just headline news. It fundamentally changed the marginal buyer base for Bitcoin, and this change triggered a series of ripple effects, making everything that happened in this cycle different from the past.

Bitcoin spot ETFs saw a peak in net inflows of $63.1 billion in October 2025, and currently stand at $54.4 billion (Source: Coinglass).

From January 2024 to October 2025, spot Bitcoin ETFs saw a cumulative net inflow of $63 billion. At its peak, the average daily inflow exceeded $350 million, which is 8 to 9 times the value of newly mined Bitcoins produced by miners each day. On the day with the largest single-day inflow, more than $1 billion poured in.

These are not retail investors. They are pension funds, registered investment advisors, family offices, endowments, and hedge funds, making asset allocation decisions on a quarterly basis. They don't check Bitcoin prices in the middle of the night. They don't experience FOMO because of a green candlestick on Twitter. They accept an asset allocation task and execute it systematically over weeks to months.

When this type of buyer becomes the dominant force in the market, price movements look completely different from those in a retail-dominated market. You no longer see long periods of sideways consolidation followed by explosive vertical surges; instead, you see a slow and sustained upward climb. There are no more parabolic weekly candlestick charts; instead, you see a seemingly unexciting but stable upward trend that, over time, can generate significant gains.

Bitcoin surged from $40,000 in January 2024 to $126,000 in October 2025, a 215% increase. In any previous cycle, such a surge would have included several weeks of weekly gains of 30% or 40%. However, in the current cycle, the weekly gains appear remarkably modest by historical standards. While the total increase is substantial, its arrival feels gradual and even somewhat monotonous, rather than explosive.

Strategy holds 845,256 BTC, representing 4.02% of the total Bitcoin supply, accumulated through continuous corporate purchases.

Then we have to mention Strategy. Their model is the most extreme version of institutional buying in this cycle. They turned their entire corporate money management strategy into a Bitcoin hoarding machine, raising funds through issuing stocks and preferred stock products and then directly investing in buying Bitcoin. As of June 2026, they held 843,706 Bitcoins, representing 4.02% of the total future supply.

In 2025 alone, they raised $25.3 billion through capital markets to buy Bitcoin. They didn't sell or hedge. They accumulated every week, regardless of price. This was a structured buying pattern that simply didn't exist in previous cycles.

The key takeaway regarding this organizational structure is its impact on on-chain data. When BlackRock purchases Bitcoin for its IBIT, these tokens are transferred to Coinbase Prime for custody, becoming virtually invisible in on-chain analytics and untraceable like retail activity. ETF purchases don't appear as token changes on-chain like retail trading. Bitcoin accumulated by Strategy through stock issuance is reflected in SEC filings, not on-chain. Compared to any previous cycle, the demand for each dollar generates less activity on the blockchain.

This is the core technical reason why every top metric fails. These metrics measure activity on the blockchain, token movement, and realized profits—and their effectiveness presupposes that retail investors are the dominant buyers. When dominant buyers operate through off-chain custody and registered financial products, these metrics behave unusually calmly, even with billions of dollars flowing into the asset. The mathematics of the metrics isn't wrong; the problem lies in them measuring the wrong things.

Why have all eight top indicators become ineffective?

These indicators once had a near-perfect track record. In 2013, 2017, and 2021, they consistently signaled tops just days or weeks before the actual peak. Analysts were glued to them throughout 2025, waiting for a signal. Bitcoin broke through $126,000 and then began to fall. Yet, all these indicators remained calmly in neutral or consolidation zones.

This isn't because the indicators are broken. It's because the market structure they were designed to measure no longer exists. Figuring out why each indicator is failing will give you a deeper understanding of the current market structure than looking at any price chart.

Bitcoin's MVRV ratio: It reached a peak of approximately 3.8 in 2025, while previous cycle peaks were between 7 and 10 (Source: Coinglass).

The MVRV ratio is Bitcoin's market capitalization divided by its realized market capitalization (i.e., the sum of the prices of all tokens at the time of their last on-chain movement). When this ratio is very high, it means that ordinary holders are sitting on extremely high unrealized profits, and historically, this has often coincided with the peak of speculation. At its peak in 2013, the ratio exceeded 10; it approached 8 in 2017; and reached 7 in 2021. The generally accepted danger threshold is greater than 7.

At its peak in October 2025, MVRV only reached approximately 3.8 to 4.2 . At the time of its all-time high, this metric was less than half of the historical warning line. The reason lies in the market structure: the accumulation of ETF buyers and Strategy firms is reflected in Bitcoin's price as demand, but the tokens are not moving in the on-chain manner required for MVRV calculations. Billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin are sitting in custodial wallets at Coinbase Prime, acting as substitutes for institutional clients, and have never truly "moved" on-chain since their purchase. Realized market capitalization is artificially inflated because the largest buyers in this cycle are operating through custodians who are largely invisible in their on-chain measurements. Therefore, when prices are at their highest, MVRV suggests the market is still in the middle of the cycle.

Pi cycle top indicator: The 111-day moving average (DMA) has never crossed above twice the 350-day moving average (350 - DMA x 2). Historically, crossovers at tops have tended to occur within days of the actual peak (Source: Coinglass).

The Pi cycle indicator is triggered when the 111-day moving average crosses above twice the 350-day moving average. It is one of the most accurate top signals in Bitcoin history, hitting the target within days of the actual peak in 2013, 2017, and 2021. Many analysts predicted a crossover in September of that year, in 2025.

But this didn't happen. The two lines kept approaching and then diverging again, but never crossed. This is directly related to the logic of institutional demand: a Pi cycle crossover requires a sharp and accelerating price increase, pushing the short-term moving average above the long-term moving average. Institutional buyers operating on a quarterly allocation schedule don't generate this acceleration. They bring a stable, sustained rise. While the total increase from $40,000 to $126,000 in 20 months might be as massive as a retail-driven parabolic surge, its angle of ascent is drastically different—the angle precisely measured by the Pi cycle indicator. Because the angle at the top didn't meet the trigger conditions, even after reaching a new all-time high, the indicator remained unmoved.

Bitcoin's NUPL: It never broke 0.75 (the "frenzy zone") when it peaked in 2025. Previous cycle peaks were all well above this threshold (Source: Coinglass).

NUPL measures the ratio of unrealized profits to unrealized losses across the entire Bitcoin network. When this value exceeds 0.75, the market is classified as being in a state of frenzy. In this state, the vast majority of holders hold substantial profits, making a large-scale sell-off highly likely. At the tops of past cycles, NUPL has been deeply entrenched in frenzy territory, sometimes even approaching 1.0.

At its peak in October 2025, NUPL's high was only around 0.60 to 0.65. This indicator suggests the market was in a confidence phase, confident but not frenzied, and the reading was accurate for the holders it could monitor. Long-term Bitcoin holders who accumulated their positions in 2022 and 2023 were highly disciplined. They weren't the kind of panic selling that a frenzied reading would suggest. And the retail participants who should have pushed NUPL into danger zones weren't buying Bitcoin; they were trading Memecoin. NUPL accurately describes the state of on-chain holders it can measure, except it doesn't see the $63 billion lying in ETF custody.

Puell Multiple: Remained around 1.0 throughout the 2025 bull market. Historical highs were 3.4, 6.6, and 10.48 (Source: Coinglass).

The Bitcoin Puell Multiple compares a miner's daily earnings to their 365-day average . When miners' earnings significantly exceed their annual average (usually due to a price surge), they aggressively sell to lock in profits, creating supply pressure, which historically has often signaled a cycle top. Previous top readings: 10.48 in 2013, 6.6 in 2017, and 3.4 in 2021. This trend has been consistently downward throughout previous cycles.

In 2025, due to the April 2024 halving that reduced the block reward from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC, miners' revenue per block was already structurally lower than in previous cycles. While the price of Bitcoin doubled, the halving reduced the number of tokens miners received. Therefore, the Puell Multiple barely exceeded 1.0. Beyond the mathematical logic of halving, the nature of modern mining is drastically different from that of 2013 or 2017. Large, publicly traded mining companies hedge their risks and have institutional-level money management systems; they no longer need to dump tokens at price peaks like early miners. This metric is tailored to a mining industry that no longer exists in the same form, and its effectiveness diminishes with each halving.

Bitcoin's reserve risk: It remained in a deep accumulation zone throughout the 2025 bull market, never approaching the orange or red zones (Source: Coinglass).

Reserve risk measures the confidence of long-term holders relative to the current price. When a long-term holder decides to sell after holding for a period of time, the opportunity cost of holding (i.e., HODL bank) is released. When many long-term holders sell simultaneously at high prices, reserve risk spikes into the danger zone. At the top of past cycles, this indicator has entered the orange and red zones as long-term holders finally succumb to profit-taking.

In 2025, reserve risk remained deeply entrenched in the accumulation zone throughout the bull market. Long-term holders simply didn't engage in the massive sell-offs that would have moved the indicator. This is the most direct fingerprint of the institutional era: the largest holders came from ETF custodians, Strategy&, and long-term retail investors who survived the 2022 bear market, holding firmly throughout the rally. They weren't impulsive sellers, so they didn't push reserve risk into the red zone. The indicator accurately measured their behavior. It's just that their behavior was remarkably rational and disciplined in price ranges that, historically, should have triggered massive sell-offs.

Bitcoin's RHODL ratio: It has risen from its lows but has never entered the historical red band that is typically associated with cycle tops (Source: Coinglass).

The RHODL ratio compares the realized wealth of tokens that have moved in the past week to tokens that haven't moved in 1 to 2 years. A high ratio indicates that the market is dominated by fresh capital, meaning new buyers who have just entered at high levels. This is a typical characteristic of a bullish top: late-stage retail money floods in at the peak. In every previous cycle top, this indicator has entered the red zone as new entrants flood the market in the final weeks.

In 2025, RHODL rebounded from its bear market lows but never crossed the red zone. The fresh capital that could push this metric to such an extreme wasn't in Bitcoin, but in Memecoin. The retail FOMO sentiment measured by RHODL shifted to a completely different part of the crypto market and vanished there, not in Bitcoin. RHODL accurately describes the current situation: at the top, new retail funds weren't dominating the Bitcoin market. The metric simply doesn't know this because there's no equivalent tool to measure exactly where retail funds are flowing.

Looking at the performance of these eight indicators at the top of a cycle, the conclusion isn't that the indicators malfunctioned. Rather, they correctly measured a market that no longer possessed the retail-dominated structure to which they were meant to be. All of these tools were designed in an era when Bitcoin prices were driven almost entirely by retail speculation. They were calibrated to detect retail frenzy. In this cycle, however, retail frenzy didn't occur with Bitcoin. These tools accurately reported this fact. The only mistake was assuming that a typical retail frenzy rally was the only way a cycle would top out.

The cycle has finally peaked. However, it peaked institutionally, slowly, without fanfare, and without triggering any alarms.

Nothing works except the cycle itself.

After examining all the available indicators for this period, we come to an honest conclusion: almost none of them give a reliable top signal.

On-chain metrics collectively failed to perform: MVRV, Pi cycle, NUPL, Puell, reserve risk, and RHODL all failed to enter danger zones at their peaks. Macroeconomic indicators valued by many analysts—global M2 money supply and the US Dollar Index (DXY)—also broke down in ways that felt unreliable. Global M2 continued to rise after Bitcoin peaked in October 2025, meaning this correlation failed precisely when it should have been most effective. And what about the DXY's correlation? Despite the DXY recording one of its worst annual performances in decades in 2025 (a drop of approximately 11% to 12%), which should have been a tailwind rather than a headwind, Bitcoin still closed with a negative return at the end of 2025. This correlation failed in both directions.

So what exactly triggered it? It was the 4-year cycle itself. If you simply draw a circle on your calendar for October 2025 (the year after the halving, coinciding with the peak time patterns of 2013, 2017, and 2021), you'd be right. This isn't based on any complex analysis of on-chain data or macro-level correlations; it's simply because the cyclical clock struck on time.

This is the unsettling conclusion that this cycle has forced us to confront. None of the tools we built to identify the top, the macro correlations we considered reliable, or the sentiment indicators we obsessively monitored, were triggered. The only thing that worked was the simplest thing: the 4-year halving cycle time that has remained constant in every cycle since 2012.

What will the next cycle bring? No one can say for sure. In 2020, people expected institutional buying or a halving to drive the market up. But what actually happened was a global pandemic, trillions of dollars in money printing, and an unexpected frenzy in risk assets. The specific catalysts driving the 2028-2029 cycle could be anything: the bursting of the AI ​​bubble leading to a return of liquidity to the crypto market, new US crypto regulations unlocking institutional capital, a Fed shift due to a recession, or something no one has yet anticipated. Trying to predict the specific causes is likely futile. History tells us that cycles will continue. It's just that the specific mechanisms will be unexpected.

We are currently in the middle of a bear market and have not yet bottomed out.

Bitcoin is currently trading between $62,000 and $63,000. This is approximately 50% lower than its all-time high of $126,296 reached in October 2025. The current market structure is characteristic of the mid-stage of a bear market; it hasn't bottomed out, but it's not in freefall either.

The most important structural level right now is the 200-week moving average (EMA 200), located around $68,832 on the weekly chart . In past bear markets, Bitcoin has found its bottom support at or near this level. The 2015 and 2022 bear markets both saw Bitcoin consolidate near the weekly 200 EMA before the next bull run began. The 200-week MA isn't a precise bottom signal; it's a range. Historically, Bitcoin has slightly dipped below this line before reversals, testing the market's resolve before the next accumulation phase begins.

Bitcoin weekly chart with 200 EMA: Every bear market cycle has found support at or near this level before the start of the next bull market (Source: Bitstamp).

On March 7, 2026, a death cross formed on Bitcoin's 3-day chart. This is the same signal that appeared before the major crashes of 2014, 2018, and 2022. Let's review the magnitude of Bitcoin's decline after each previous 3-day death cross:

Bitcoin's 3-day chart: On March 7, 2026, the EMA 50 crossed below the EMA 200 (death cross). Previous death crosses led to declines of 27%, 43%, and 53% from the crossover point, respectively (data source: Bitstamp).

A pessimistic prediction is that if the 200-week moving average fails to hold, and the average decline following a historical death cross applies, the price could target $33,000 to $35,000. This is a number you need to keep in mind in a downtrend scenario.

The baseline scenario is that, considering the trend of gradually narrowing cross-cycle declines and the presence of institutional buying support unprecedented in previous bear markets, the bottom is likely to be between $45,000 and $55,000. In terms of timing, applying a historical top-to-bottom rhythm, the bottom points to the third or fourth quarter of 2026, particularly October or November 2026, approximately one year from the peak.

What does a confirmed bottom look like? Bitcoin holds above the 200-week moving average for three consecutive weeks or more. ETF outflows begin to stabilize after a period of sustained withdrawals. The Fear & Greed Index rises from below 15 and remains above 25 for at least two weeks. When these conditions are met together, and not just a single price level, it signals the start of an accumulation phase.

Will it bottom out in 2026 and peak in 2029?

Once the current bear market phase ends, the cycle framework will point to the following sequence:

Q3-Q4 2026: Bitcoin bottoms out. The 200-week moving average and the realized price of around $54,000 form a support zone. Historically, this is the best accumulation zone in any cycle—a period of extreme pessimism before the start of the next expansion. This is also the time when most retail investors who entered near the top abandon their positions and sell, transferring tokens to long-term holders at a discount.

2026-2027: Accumulation Phase. Prices will trade sideways, dull, and wildly volatile. There will be no major headlines or momentum. This phase feels like nothing is happening, which is why most people miss it. Every previous cycle has had an identical phase between the bottom of a bear market and the start of the next bull market.

April 2028: The next halving. The block reward decreases from 3.125 BTC to 1.5625 BTC. Miner selling pressure is halved again. Institutional demand from the ETF complex (now much larger than today) begins to absorb the supply shock. Bitcoin begins to accumulate momentum.

2028-2029: Post-halving expansion. If the 4-year cycle holds true, this will be the next major bull market. Based on consistent timing patterns, the peak in 2029 is most likely to occur in the third or fourth quarter of that year.

One crucial point: the 2025 cycle suggests that the kind of wild topping rallies that drove previous cycle peaks may not happen in the same way again. As institutional ownership of Bitcoin continues to grow, while retail participation represents a smaller proportion of total demand, the arrival of a top may not be accompanied by extreme indicator readings, parabolic price movements, or the easily identifiable cyclical top signals of the past. To cash out at the next top, you'll need to rely on tools that didn't work in 2021.

in conclusion

Bitcoin's four-year cycle remained intact. The top arrived as expected, coinciding precisely with the halving cycle, with the price surpassing previous highs and reaching a new all-time high. The cycle functioned exactly as anticipated.

What's failing are the tools people use to identify the top. Every classic on-chain metric has gone silent because every classic on-chain metric measures retail investor behavior, and retail investors aren't actually in Bitcoin. Before retail capital even reaches Bitcoin, it has already been systematically drained through Memecoin, celebrity tokens, and high FDV VC token structures. By October 2025, the retail fuel that could drive a violent top and trigger frenzy indicators will be exhausted.

Institutional buyers, replacing retail investors—ETFs, Strategy firms, and professional asset allocators—created a surge of up to 215% from the 2024 lows to the peak, but their actions didn't produce parabolic candlestick patterns or trigger any alarms. Indicators showed everything was calm, but the market still topped out.

The only thing that truly matters is the cyclical time pattern itself. October 2025 will be approximately 535 days from the halving in April 2024, and about a year from the cycle bottom suggested by the pattern, almost perfectly matching historical time patterns. This isn't due to complex indicator analysis, but because the same four-year structure, which has remained unchanged since 2012, has been validated once again.

Bitcoin is currently in a bear market phase consistent with the aftermath of all previous cyclical peaks. The 200-week EMA serves as a structural reference level supporting the bottoms of all past bear markets. Future price movements will follow the cyclical timeline. Specific catalysts, market characteristics, and whether old indicators will ultimately be triggered—these are all unpredictable. The timeline is the only signal that has never failed to hold true.