Author | DingDang (@XiaMiPP)
In the eighteen years since Bitcoin's birth, the "four-year cycle" theory has almost become a foundational belief in the cryptocurrency market. Bitcoin halving, supply contraction, price increases, and the altcoin season relay—this narrative has not only explained multiple historical bull and bear market transitions but has also profoundly influenced investors' portfolio management, project fundraising rhythms, and even the entire industry's understanding of "time."
However, after the April 2024 halving, Bitcoin only rose from $60,000 to a historical high of $126,000, a increase far lower than in previous cycles. Altcoins have been particularly weak, while macroeconomic liquidity and policy variables have instead become more sensitive anchors for the market. Especially with the large-scale entry of spot ETFs, institutional funds, and traditional financial instruments, one question is repeatedly debated:
Does the four-year cycle still exist in the crypto market?
To explore this, we invited seven seasoned crypto industry professionals for a dialogue spanning optimism and caution, bull and bear market predictions. They are:
- Jason | Founder of NDV Fund: Previously responsible for Chinese investments at the family office of Alibaba founder Joe Tsai, involved in both primary and secondary markets. Investment style leans towards combining the rigor of primary markets with the liquidity of secondary markets. Their first fund achieved an absolute return of approximately 275% in 23 months, has fully exited, and, as an open-end fund, ensured all investors realized profits.
- Ye Su | Founding Partner of ArkStream Capital: Has invested in over a hundred companies and projects including Aave, Filecoin, and Ethena over the past eight years, following institutional investment trends.
- Jack Yi | Founder of Liquid Capital: Focuses on actual positions and trading strategies, emphasizing the配置 value of mainstream assets, stablecoins, and exchange ecosystems at different cycle stages.
- James | Founder of DFG: Currently manages over $1 billion in assets, was an early investor in companies like LedgerX, Ledger, Coinlist, and Circle, and also an early investor and supporter of protocols like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and Uniswap.
- Joanna Liang | Founding Partner of Jsquare Fund: A '90s entrepreneur and investor, currently managing over $200 million in assets and specifically operating a $50 million LP fund; has previously invested in several star projects including Pudgy Penguins, Circle, Amber Group, and Render Network.
- Bruce | Founder of Maitong MSX: Background in mining, judging the long-term profit space and risk boundaries of the crypto market from the perspective of mining costs, cycle returns, and industry maturity.
- CryptoPainter | Crypto Data Analyst: Uses on-chain data and technical indicators as primary tools, combined with historical cycle characteristics, for quantitative judgment of market phases and trend inflection points.
I. What Exactly Is the "Four-Year Cycle" We're Talking About?
Before discussing whether the cycle has "failed," a prerequisite question needs clarification:
What exactly do we mean by the "four-year cycle"?
From the general consensus of the interviewees, the traditional four-year cycle is primarily driven by Bitcoin's block reward halving, which occurs approximately every four years. The halving means new supply decreases, miner behavior changes, and it provides long-term support for the price center—this is the core, most mathematically grounded part of the "four-year cycle" narrative.
However, some guests also place the crypto cycle within a broader financial framework. NDV founder Jason believes the four-year cycle is actually a dual-driven model of political cycle + liquidity cycle, not just a simple code-based halving规律. The so-called four years highly coincide with the US election cycle and the global central bank liquidity release rhythm. Previously, people only looked at the halving, considering it the only variable, because each cycle added a significant number of new Bitcoins. But now, with the approval of spot ETFs, Bitcoin has entered the macro asset sequence. The expansion rate of the Fed's balance sheet and global M2 growth are the true core defining the cycle. So, in his view, the four-year cycle is essentially a cycle of fiat liquidity. Simply thinking from the mathematical impact on the supply side, BTC will only add 600,000 new coins this cycle (2024-2028), which is too small for the issued supply of around 19 million. The selling pressure of less than $60 billion is also easily digested by Wall Street.
II.规律, or a Self-Fulfilling Narrative?
When a concept is repeatedly verified and widely spread, it often evolves from a "规律" to a "consensus," and further into a narrative. And narratives themselves can, in turn, influence market behavior. Therefore, an unavoidable question is: Is the four-year cycle an objectively existing economic规律, or a market narrative collectively believed in, thus constantly self-fulfilling?
Regarding the causes of the four-year cycle, our interviewees' views were largely consistent, believing it is the result of the combined effect of objective mechanisms and market narratives, but with different dominant forces at different stages.
As CryptoPainter stated, the four-year cycle indeed had extraordinary significance in the early days when miner output was high. But this supply-demand change cycle has a clear marginal effect. Theoretically, as halvings occur multiple times, the impact of the halving event itself on supply and demand is also halved. Therefore, the percentage increase in each bull market shows a logarithmic reduction. One can guess that the next halving cycle will have an even smaller price impact. Jason similarly pointed out that as the size grows, the impact of pure supply-side changes diminishes. The current cycle is more based on the self-fulfillment of liquidity.
Jsquare Fund founding partner Joanna Liang added from a market behavior perspective that the four-year cycle is, to a considerable extent, characterized by "self-fulfillment." As the participation structure of institutions and retail investors changes, the relative importance of macro policies, regulatory environment, liquidity conditions, and the halving event is reordered each cycle. In this dynamic game, the four-year cycle is no longer an "iron law" but just one of many influencing factors. In her view, precisely because the fundamentals are constantly evolving, it is not impossible for the market to break the four-year cycle规律 or even冲刺 a "super cycle."
Overall, the guests' consensus is: The four-year cycle indeed had a solid supply-demand foundation in its early stages, but as miners' influence in the market declines and Bitcoin gradually shifts towards an asset allocation attribute, the cycle is transitioning from being strongly mechanism-driven to a result of the combined action of narratives, behavior, and macro factors. The current cycle may have gradually changed from a "hard constraint" to a "soft expectation."
III. This Cycle's Increase Is Significantly Smaller: Natural Cycle Decrement, or "Overshadowed" by ETF and Institutional Fund Influence?
On this issue, almost all guests gave relatively consistent directional judgments: This is the natural result of diminishing marginal effects, not a sudden failure of the cycle. Any growing market will experience a process of multiple decreases. As Bitcoin's market capitalization continues to expand, each new "multiple" requires exponentially growing capital inflows. Therefore, declining returns are themselves a natural规律.
From this perspective, "not rising as much as before" is actually a result that aligns with long-term logic.
But deeper changes come from the market structure itself.
Joanna Liang believes the biggest difference in this cycle compared to the past is the early entry of spot ETFs and institutional funds. In the previous cycle, Bitcoin hitting a new all-time high was mainly driven by marginal retail liquidity. In this cycle, over $50 billion in ETF funds continuously flowed in around the halving, absorbing the supply shock before it truly manifested. This spreads the price increase over a longer time dimension, no longer集中表现为 a parabolic爆发 post-halving.
Jack Yi added from the perspective of market capitalization and volatility that as Bitcoin enters the trillion-dollar level, declining volatility is itself an inevitable result of mainstream assetization. When the market cap was small early on, capital inflows easily led to exponential growth. At the current size, even doubling requires极其庞大的 new capital inflows.
DFG founder James positioned the halving as a "variable that still exists but has decreasing importance." In his view, future halvings will be more like secondary catalysts. What truly determines the trend will be institutional fund flows, the landing of real demands like RWA, and the macro liquidity environment.
However, Maitong MSX founder Bruce did not entirely agree with this point. He believes the halving increases Bitcoin's production cost, and cost ultimately still imposes long-term constraints on price. Even as the industry matures and overall returns decline, the halving will still positively impact price through cost increases, just not in the form of剧烈波动.
Overall, the guests do not believe "smaller increases" are caused by a single factor. A more reasonable explanation is: The marginal impact of the halving is decreasing, while ETFs and institutional funds are changing the rhythm and form of price formation. This is not the halving failing, but the market no longer爆发 around the halving single point.
IV. So What Stage Are We Actually at Now?
If the previous discussion focused more on "whether the cycle structure still holds," then this question is clearly more practical: Standing at the present, are we in a bull market, a bear market, or some transitional phase not yet accurately named?
It is on this point that the interviewees'分歧 are most apparent.
MSX founder Bruce is relatively pessimistic. He believes it is a typical early bear market, just that the end of the bull market is not acknowledged by most participants. His judgment is based on the most basic cost and return structure. In the last cycle, Bitcoin's mining cost was about $20,000, and the price rose to a high of $69,000, leaving a profit margin at the miner level of nearly 70%. In this cycle, the post-halving mining cost is接近 $70,000. Even if the price touched the historical high of $126,000, the profit margin is only just over 40%. In Bruce's view, as an industry nearly 20 years old, declining cycle returns each round are normal. Unlike 2020-2021, a large amount of incremental capital in this cycle did not choose to enter the crypto market but flowed into AI-related assets. At least in the North American market, the most active risk-appetite capital is still concentrated in the AI sector of US stocks.
CryptoPainter's judgment is明显偏向 technical and data层面. He believes the current market has not yet entered a true cyclical bear market but is already in a technical bear market—its core标志 is breaking the weekly MA50. The past two bull markets experienced technical bear markets in their later stages, but this does not mean the cycle ends immediately. A true cyclical bear market often requires同步衰退 of the macro economy as a confirmation condition. Therefore, he describes the current stage as a kind of "probation state": The technical structure has already weakened, but macro conditions have not yet given the final verdict. He specifically mentioned that the total stablecoin supply is still growing. When stablecoins also stop growing long-term (for more than 2 months), the bear market will be confirmed.
In contrast, more guests' judgments still lean towards: The cycle has already failed, currently in a mid-to-late bull market correction, and will likely enter a震荡上行 or slow bull mode in the future. Jason and Ye Su's judgments are both based on global macro liquidity. In their view, the US currently has almost no other option but to use monetary easing to delay the集中释放 of debt pressure. The rate-cutting cycle has just begun; the liquidity "faucet" is not closed. So as long as global M2 is still expanding, crypto assets, as the most sensitive sponge to liquidity, have not ended their upward trend. Additionally, he mentioned that the real bear market signal is when central banks substantially tighten liquidity, or when the real economy experiences a serious recession leading to liquidity drying up. Currently, these indicators do not show abnormalities; instead, they show liquidity is蓄势待发. And from the market's leverage ratio, if contract open interest is too high relative to market cap, it is usually a signal for a short-term adjustment, not a bear market signal.
Jack Yi also believes that Wall Street and institutions are重构 the financial system based on blockchain. The chip structure is becoming more stable, no longer prone to major fluctuations like in the early retail-dominated days. Moreover, with the change of Fed chairman, the rate-cutting cycle来临,加上史上最友好的 crypto policies, the current fluctuations will be seen as wide震荡 in the future, and the medium to long term is bullish.
The分歧 itself is perhaps the most真实的特征 of this stage. The judgments of our interviewees form an imperfect but sufficiently real small sample: some have confirmed a bear market, others are waiting for data to give the final answer, but more probably believe the four-year cycle theory has basically failed.
And more importantly, it is no longer the only, or even the main, framework for understanding the market. The importance of the halving, time, and sentiment is being reassessed, while macro liquidity, market structure, and asset attributes are becoming more critical variables.
V. The Core Driving Force of the Eternal Bull Market: From Sentiment Bull to Structural Bull
If the "four-year cycle" is weakening, and the future crypto market no longer presents clear bull-bear switches but enters a state of long-term震荡上行 with significantly compressed bear markets, then what is the core动力 supporting this structure?
Jason believes it is the systematic decay of fiat currency credit and the normalization of institutional配置. As Bitcoin is gradually seen as "digital gold" and enters the balance sheets of sovereign nations, pension funds, and hedge funds, its upward logic no longer relies on a single cycle event but becomes closer to gold—a "long-term asset against fiat depreciation." Price performance will also show a spiral rise. At the same time, he特别强调了 the importance of stablecoins. In his view, compared to Bitcoin, stablecoins have a larger potential user base, and their penetration path is closer to the real economy. From payments and settlements to cross-border capital flows, stablecoins are becoming the "interface layer" of a new generation of financial infrastructure. This means the future growth of the crypto market does not完全依赖 speculative demand but will gradually embed itself in real financial and commercial activities.
Joanna Liang's judgment echoes this. She believes an important variable for the future slow bull comes from sustained adoption at the institutional level, whether through spot ETFs or tokenization paths like RWA. As long as institutional配置 behavior continues, the market will show a "compound interest" style upward structure—volatility is smoothed out, but the trend does not reverse.
CryptoPainter's perspective is more direct. He pointed out that the right side of the BTCUSD trading pair is USD. Therefore, as long as global liquidity remains宽松 long-term and the USD is in a weak cycle, asset prices will not experience a deep bear. Instead, they will slowly震荡上行 through一次次 technical bear markets. The traditional bull-bear structure will also shift to a form similar to gold's "long-term震荡 - surge - long-term震荡" pattern.
Of course, not everyone agrees with the "slow bull narrative."
Bruce's judgment on the future is明显偏向 pessimistic. He believes the structural problems of the global economy are not resolved: deteriorating employment environments, young people lying flat, highly concentrated wealth, and accumulating geopolitical risks. Against this background, the probability of a severe economic crisis in 2026-2027 is not low. If macro systemic risks truly爆发, crypto assets cannot stay immune.
In a way, the slow bull is not a consensus but a conditional judgment建立在 liquidity continuation之上.
VI. Is There Still a Traditional "Altcoin Season"?
"Altcoin season" is almost an inseparable part of the four-year cycle narrative. But in this cycle, its absence has instead become one of the most frequently discussed phenomena.
The poor performance of altcoins this cycle has multiple reasons. Joanna pointed out, first, the rise of Bitcoin's dominance has created a "risk-free asset within risk assets" pattern, making institutional funds more inclined towards blue-chip assets. Second, the regulatory framework is gradually maturing, which favors altcoins with clear utility and compliance for long-term adoption. Third, this cycle lacks killer applications and clear narratives like DeFi and NFT in the previous cycle.
Another consensus among the guests is that a new altcoin season may emerge, but it will be more selective, revolving only around a few tokens that truly have use cases and can generate revenue.
CryptoPainter put it more bluntly. He believes a traditional altcoin season, in the traditional sense, is impossible to reappear because the term "traditional sense" represents a time when the total number of altcoins was within a reasonable range. Currently, the total number of altcoins has been breaking new highs史无前例. Even if macro liquidity overflows in, there are too many monks and too little gruel, making a普涨行情 impossible. Therefore, even if there is still an altcoin season, it will be极个别, and a local altcoin season flowing according to sector narratives. Paying attention to individual altcoins now is meaningless; one needs to focus on tracks and sectors.
Ye Su used US stocks as an analogy: Future altcoin performance will be more like the M7 in US stocks—blue-chip altcoins长期跑赢 the大盘, small-cap altcoins偶尔爆发, but with极弱 sustainability.
Ultimately, the market structure has changed. It was once a retail-driven attention economy; now it's an institution-driven报表 economy.
VII. Portfolio Distribution Situation
In such a market with模糊 cycle structure and narrative断裂, we also asked several guests about their actual portfolio distribution.
A rather striking fact is: Most interviewees have basically清仓 altcoins and are mostly at半仓状态.
Jason's仓位策略明显偏向 "defense + long-term." He stated that he currently prefers using gold instead of USD as a cash management tool to hedge fiat risk. For digital assets, most positions are配置在 BTC and ETH, but are cautious about ETH配置. They prefer assets with high确定性, i.e., hard currency (BTC) and exchange equity (Upbit).
CryptoPainter strictly adheres to the rule of "cash ratio not less than 50%." His core配置 is still BTC and ETH, with altcoin positions below 10%. He exited all gold positions after $3500 and暂时 has no plans to配置 gold. Simultaneously, he holds some extremely low-leverage short positions on US stock AI sector品种 with high valuation bubbles.
Jack Yi's risk preference is relatively higher. His fund is接近满仓, but the structure is also concentrated: Core is ETH,配置 stablecoin logic (WLFI), supplemented by large-cap assets like BTC, BCH, BNB. The logic is not gambling on the cycle but betting on the long-term structure of public chains, stablecoins, and exchanges.
In stark contrast is Bruce. He has almost清空 all crypto positions, including selling BTC around $110,000. In his view, there will still be opportunities to buy back below $70,000 in the next two years. His US stocks are also mostly defensive/cyclical stocks, and he will likely清仓 most US stocks before the World Cup next year.
VIII. Is Now a Good Time to Buy the Dip?
This is the most operational of all questions. Bruce's attitude is pessimistic. He believes it is far from the bottom. The real bottom appears at the moment "no one dares to buy the dip anymore."
The cautious CryptoPainter also believes the most ideal price to buy the dip or start dollar-cost averaging is below $60,000. The logic is simple: starting to buy陆续 after the price halves from the peak has been proven a successful strategy in every bull market. Clearly, this target won't be reached short-term. His view on the current market is that after 1-2 months of large-range震荡, next year有望 tests the price above $100,000 again, but大概率 cannot break new highs. Subsequently, macro monetary policy利好出尽, the market lacks follow-up liquidity and new narratives, and will formally enter a cyclical bear. Then, patiently wait for monetary policy to start a new round of monetary easing and aggressive rate cuts.
More guests' attitudes are relatively neutral to bullish. They believe now may not be the time for "aggressive dip-buying," but it is a window期 to start分批建仓 and gradually配置. There is only one consensus: Do not add leverage, do not频繁波段, discipline is far more important than judgment.
