It seems like everyone is too confident about the 4-year cycle

[standardnepo]

Everyone seems convinced the 4-year Bitcoin cycle is guaranteed at this point. The more I read Bitcoin Twitter, Reddit, and YouTube, the more it feels like the cycle is treated as a fact rather than a theory. Historically, markets love making the majority look foolish.
What if this is the cycle where it breaks?

I’m not saying the cycle is dead or that Bitcoin won’t continue growing. I’m just wondering whether we’re putting too much faith in a pattern because it has worked before. P.S. This is my first post here, so apologies if I made any mistakes.

[Oshosondy]

We do not know yet, it is too early to make any conclusion for now. If you want the cycle to end, expect more governments to make bitcoin a reserve currency and they should increase accumulating it, and also treasury complains like Strategy, 21 Capital and Metaplanet need to dominate, but right now they are not dominating. ETF companies, exchanges, individuals are still dominating the market.

What I am saying is that the percentage of bitcoin held by individuals, ETF companies, and exchange are far more than the bitcoin held by countries and treasury companies. You should expect another bear season if this has not changed.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Yes, we are in my opinion. We treat it as a religious prophecy, but as time goes on, the cycle "pattern" will break. Comparably to previous cycles, this one was far less significant in terms of return, and I expect the next one to be even less significant, something around 4-5x from the current bottom.

Once the 8 million BTC from OG wallets end up in the hands of Blackrock and Strategy, maybe we experience supercycle.

[buwaytress]

Yes, we are in my opinion. We treat it as a religious prophecy, but as time goes on, the cycle "pattern" will break. Comparably to previous cycles, this one was far less significant in terms of return, and I expect the next one to be even less significant, something around 4-5x from the current bottom.

Once the 8 million BTC from OG wallets end up in the hands of Blackrock and Strategy, maybe we experience supercycle.

Yeah, in many ways already covered over the last couple of years -- the cycle as we know it is already invalidated. So actually not sure why OP has the feeling everyone's confident. Thought plenty already accepted things won't happen the way we're familiar with already.

I do feel like there'll be one unexpected supercyle though -- though that will be relative to the 2xs and below we're about to get used to now as new ATHs.

[KiaKia]

Before everyone accepts that the 4 years cycle is still real it will be too late already, all I can say is don't wait to start buying Bitcoin, now is a good time to start buying, compared to a month or two months back.

As a matter of fact, four year cycle is still a thing, it's been proven wrong already that four year cycle is no more, people waiting for more confirmation is what I don't understand and this shouldn't be your green light to start buying Bitcoin.

Always be among those who won't miss out, either ways that plays out it's still all good at your end, do not sit on your hands and do nothing.

[pawanjain]

In one my recent posts I was mentioning the same thing. People have somehow believe that the 4 year cycle will repeat this time too.
But the thing is, if it were so predictable then everybody would be making huge money by now.
We can't expect a cycle to repeat since would have already played their move expecting the cycle to repeat, thus changing the cycle by itself.
People are failing to understand this.

[knowngunman]

Yes, we looked confident because It has worked so far but it is not a rule.

What is guarantee is halving because it is in the protocol but it doesn't guarantee price must sky rocket after halving. The four year cycle is just us humans making assumptions, connecting dots because it worked so far and thereby making it look like a law but the truth is, it's not. And infact, it's totally possible it could break in the coming years (might not be now) because the pattern seems to be changing already.

[standardnepo]

Before everyone accepts that the 4 years cycle is still real it will be too late already, all I can say is don't wait to start buying Bitcoin, now is a good time to start buying, compared to a month or two months back.

As a matter of fact, four year cycle is still a thing, it's been proven wrong already that four year cycle is no more, people waiting for more confirmation is what I don't understand and this shouldn't be your green light to start buying Bitcoin.

Always be among those who won't miss out, either ways that plays out it's still all good at your end, do not sit on your hands and do nothing.

I agree. DCAing takes a lot of the stress out of all the market volatility. It also takes a lot of the stress off me personally. I’ll stick to my plan, and avoid making stupid mistakes.

[sergiorus]

Yes, we are in my opinion. We treat it as a religious prophecy, but as time goes on, the cycle "pattern" will break. Comparably to previous cycles, this one was far less significant in terms of return, and I expect the next one to be even less significant, something around 4-5x from the current bottom.

It is already broken, imho.
If we look at the infamous ''Bitcoin rainbow chart" (one of the main pillars of the ''cycle theory''), in the last cycle, particularly in late 2024, we only briefly tapped the ''still cheap'' band and the rest of the cycle was spent at the ''accumulate'' or lower bands.

Ref:



I believe that if one the main foundations (if not the main) of the cycle theory indicates there hasn't been a cycle since 2021 then this theory should simply be considered dead.

[MusaMohamed]

Everyone seems convinced the 4-year Bitcoin cycle is guaranteed at this point. The more I read Bitcoin Twitter, Reddit, and YouTube, the more it feels like the cycle is treated as a fact rather than a theory. Historically, markets love making the majority look foolish.
What if this is the cycle where it breaks?

I’m not saying the cycle is dead or that Bitcoin won’t continue growing. I’m just wondering whether we’re putting too much faith in a pattern because it has worked before. P.S. This is my first post here, so apologies if I made any mistakes.

You can believe in the four-year cycle continuation or don't believe it, but be confident about it can result in different strategies and actions. You can still focus on long term investment and won't let the Bitcoin four-year cycle affects your investment strategy and practice. As the four-year cycle might be no longer accurate, and the next cycles can be longer than four years, but if your investment is for long term, longer than four year, will you be affected by such changes?

I believe your investment won't be considerably affected by it because you don't only restrict your investment plan to only four years but actually plan your investment for longer than four years.

Oppositely people who are too confident and focused too much on only four years, made their investment for four years only, they will be considerably affected if the Bitcoin market cycle becomes longer than four years.

[Maslate]

Whether we admit it or not, majority are still relying on its 4-year cycle, not because it works on the past, but because people are still stuck in the idea that history may always repeat itself.

However, with the huge surge of institutions, ETFs and macroeconomic factors, relying on its 4-year cycle may not be the thing now and its even more risky following the same pattern. Although I have no against those people who still expect so much from 4-year cycle, but seeing the market is evolving, its best if we can rely on our personalized investment strategy like DCA, rather than trying to time the market following the historical pattern.

[DanWalker]

You know what. While many people still doubt the 4 year market cycle and keep holding onto the 'this time is different' narrative. At the same time, a lot of those same people who once confidently declared the cycle was dead and Bitcoin was heading into a supercycle are now quietly changing their minds. They are starting to believe the 4year pattern may be repeating itself after all.

The market is unpredictable, and everyone has their own perspective and view of it. So believe what you think is right. You dont need to worry about what other people say or think.

As for me, I still believe in market cycles until a new history is made.

[Luzin]

Everyone seems convinced the 4-year Bitcoin cycle is guaranteed at this point. The more I read Bitcoin Twitter, Reddit, and YouTube, the more it feels like the cycle is treated as a fact rather than a theory. Historically, markets love making the majority look foolish.
What if this is the cycle where it breaks?

Since the beginning, this cycle has become a guide, so it is natural that this condition has been trusted by many people. There is a clear measure regarding the reduction of rewards for miners. This condition meets the law of trade that the rarer a good is, the higher its price should be. Perhaps currently there are many large companies starting to join, making the market slightly different. This year looks the same, with only a few small differences, and this seems reasonable because there is no exact act, but it has not changed much. I still believe this cycle is still trusted and happening today.

[BALIK]

In one my recent posts I was mentioning the same thing. People have somehow believe that the 4 year cycle will repeat this time too.
But the thing is, if it were so predictable then everybody would be making huge money by now.
We can't expect a cycle to repeat since would have already played their move expecting the cycle to repeat, thus changing the cycle by itself.
People are failing to understand this.

One thing is certain: sooner or later, the cycle will change. But no one can know when that will happen.
However given the current situation, it seems the cycle is repeating itself once again.

Sometimes the market has not really changed and it is quite predictable, but we tend to make things more complicated than they need to be. Instead of simply trusting past pattern. We look for new reason and argument to justify the idea that this time is different, while the market continues to do what it has always done.

Sometimes the market does not need to change, instead, it makes investors believe it is changing.

[ContentWriter]

I agree completely with the OP that they cycle won't hold this time. The reason is that this is the first time institutionjal and public fund has flowed into Bitcoin and the charts are no longer a reflection of the buy/sell trait of core Bitcoin believers and those hngers-on wanting to get-rich-quick with Bitcoin. The effect is that with the slightest sign of trouble as we are witnessing, those investors that got exposed to BTC through traditional finance such as ETFs are dumping the asset as quickly as they came in. Many won't be coming back and those who will may make the same mistake of entering at another ATH and get disappointed once again.

What is obvious is that the inflow from traditional finance sector has changed the dynamics of the Bitcoin cycle as we knew it - at least in this cycle. I can't be sure if the cycle returns down the line.

[Dr.Bitcoin_Strange]

It actually calls to be confident for because we have seen how the price of Bitcoin reacts after the bull season and during the bear season, the fact that this has happened not only once is enough that people should believe that it's going to always happen, even though that there would be some shift because things might not actually happen exactly the same way but it never completely changed the occurrence. Bitcoin price experienced a new ATH even before the halving happen unlike the previous ones but we still saw that price of Bitcoin went up so high during the bull season and now that is considered beat market, we saw as price went down even to $60k that most people believed that price was not going to reach.

[pooya87]

The 4-year cycle is not going to end, but it will get slightly weaker each cycle.

The cycle is not just a theory or some imaginary hype. It is a simple law of supply and demand.
Each 4 years the supply creation rate is reduced by a whopping 50% and if you cut new supply of anything by half, the price of that thing is bound to rise even if demand stays the same (which it doesn't in case of bitcoin, instead it grows with increasing adoption).

But it will get weaker because the total supply created in each cycle is reducing after all. Just think about it, in first cycle we created 10,500,000 bitcoins in 4 years and then we cut that by half and only produced 5,250,000 BTC in the next cycle. That 5 million reduction was significant.
Compared to today, in the previous cycle (the 4th one) we only introduced 1,312,500 new bitcoins into circulation and when we cut that by half we started production of only a total of 656,250 (by the end of the cycle). That means we only reduced the fresh supply creation by 600k this time.
Next time it will be cut by 300k.

So obviously when we reduced the production by 5 million, that had a much more significant impact on the supply and demand balance compared to the next time when we would be cutting it by 300k.
It may be a weaker impact but it is still a significant one since if you look at the total value of it you can see that it is roughly $19 billion dollars in today's price. This is the total size of potential future sell pressure that will no longer be there. Something that would make rising easier. Therefore the 4-year cycle will still continue to exist.

P.S. The reason for the "dump" part of the cycle has been different ever since 2020 though. Basically after the first major recession during "Bitcoin-Era" caused by COVID19. These past major dumps in past 6 years, has been due to the global economic hardship.

[hd49728]

It is already broken, imho.
If we look at the infamous ''Bitcoin rainbow chart" (one of the main pillars of the ''cycle theory''), in the last cycle, particularly in late 2024, we only briefly tapped the ''still cheap'' band and the rest of the cycle was spent at the ''accumulate'' or lower bands.

Ref:



I believe that if one the main foundations (if not the main) of the cycle theory indicates there hasn't been a cycle since 2021 then this theory should simply be considered dead.

The Bitcoin Rainbow chart is a joke, as the author created more new color bands for the chart after previous versions with less colors were broken. Because this creativeness already appeared, it will be repeated in the future if current colors for this version won't be enough for future price movements of Bitcoin. The author will not hesitate adding new color bands to the Rainbow chart.

Then perhaps the author will have to think about a new name for the chart, as with many colors, will the name "Rainbow" be relevant for it?

[aoluain]

I definitely dont think the 4 year cycle is guaranteed, nobody can say how the future of the
market is going to go, but the way I see it in my usual simplified vision is that I have yet to
be convinced why or how it would come to an end.

and as for it continuing on I have this common belief that the cycle is pretty much centered
around the halving, and as long as that happens there will be speculation around it which
could inevitably feed the Bull/Bear cycles.

[sergiorus]

It is already broken, imho.
If we look at the infamous ''Bitcoin rainbow chart" (one of the main pillars of the ''cycle theory''), in the last cycle, particularly in late 2024, we only briefly tapped the ''still cheap'' band and the rest of the cycle was spent at the ''accumulate'' or lower bands.

Ref:

I believe that if one the main foundations (if not the main) of the cycle theory indicates there hasn't been a cycle since 2021 then this theory should simply be considered dead.

The Bitcoin Rainbow chart is a joke, as the author created more new color bands for the chart after previous versions with less colors were broken. Because this creativeness already appeared, it will be repeated in the future if current colors for this version won't be enough for future price movements of Bitcoin. The author will not hesitate adding new color bands to the Rainbow chart.

Then perhaps the author will have to think about a new name for the chart, as with many colors, will the name "Rainbow" be relevant for it?

Of course it's been adjusted a few times but it's still a good illustration of the ''cycles'' history and how they have been going away.

If you don't like that illustration, you can use pure math: ''new highs'' were much lower the last ''cycle'' - clearly an outlier, which could probably pass as bad cycle influented by geopolitical fears but the correction from the ATH so far is not as deep as after the 2021 top either (53% vs. 77% respectively), assuming BTC has found the bottom, of course.

If the correction ends up being at least 65% or more I will change my mind and will embrace the cycle theory for now but I don't believe BTC will go any lower.