What do you mean by a 4 years cycle?

[OsaiEmma]

Hello forum 👋🏻.  Hope we're all doing good. Okay, let's talk about the so called "4 years cycle".

For starters, I believe in the four years cycle, and that's probably because I'm a trader. Traders do often tend to look for patterns and structures in assets movements, and although some members will say that's just an illusion or a myth, they actually do work.
You know what a hypothesis is, right? They are unproven theories, but after subjecting those hypothesis through numerous tests and experiments and see it holding up and playing out with regards to the hypothesis, then it becomes a real working theory.
In trading, the minimum for acceptance is 3; guess what, we've got 4 proven tests, so right now in my eyes and in the eyes of so many traders out there, the four years cycle is no longer a hypothesis.

But that's not what I want to talk about, I want to talk about:

1) The mechanism behind the four years cycle.
2) The economic implications of this mechanism.
3) How this mechanism influences the four years cycle.
4) The conclusion.

1. The mechanism behind the four years cycle :
The four years cycle is anchored around the miners' reward halving which is triggered at every 210,000 blocks. This event is estimated to occur every 4 years. Now what does this tell us? This event creates bitcoin scarcity coupled with its fixed supply of 21million coins, this makes bitcoin a highly disinflationary currency.

Now you might be asking what does this have to do with anything, well this brings us to my next point of discussion.

2. The economic implications of this mechanism :
We all know the law of supply and demand, right? And how scarcity is a driving force behind the abrupt increase in price of an asset. So yeah, the above mentioned mechanism increases demand naturally. But it still doesn't explain the four years cycle; you're right, but just hear me out a little.

Since we can estimate when this event will take place, traders are positioning themselves for it. This is what truly happens.

3. How this mechanism influences the four years cycle :
When the halving takes place, naturally demand will increase and the price will shoot up (well not linearly but naturally with Higher-Highs and Higher-Lows). It will continue until the market becomes over-saturated and eventually price begins to drop (this is a normal phenomenon for all tradeable assets, no price goes up or down infinitely). Now while dropping, traders keep selling to a point where they decide to wait for or place a buy order in a presumed floor price which most estimates to be at the previous ATH because that seems to be the immediate support, and even if to goes beyond that, it won't be much lower than that price.

These buys (bullish trend) don't happen immediately or exactly at the point of halving, wise traders start accumulating little by little over a 12 - 18 months period pending the event, positioning themselves before the big event so when it is time they'll be in so much profit. And then the process is repeated over and over again.

Now we will say why after the halving, we do see price still going low? That's for two reasons;

1) Short term investors (paper hand) are taking profit.
2) What you're seeing is a normal chart movement of break and retest: price is reversing its trend, so it normally goes back to retest a previous resistance price turning it to support thus confirming the trend reversal movement.

Now, some will say, these are all false, macro-economical news are the real driving forces. Don't worry, let's address this in the conclusion.

4. The conclusion :
There have been news that triggered each market trend like the creation of silk road, Mt. Gox collapse etc. But there have been news within that period that failed to reverse the trend, like in the case of silk road, after FBI shut down, it still continued to rally, the shutdown of miners in China didn't change the trend either. During the 2022 bear market triggered by Terra luna collapse, even with El Salvador adoption, the trend still didn't reverse.

Even when the FTT scandal happened in 2022 that drove price below its previous ATH, this would have triggered an either prolonged or a more aggressive bear market, but instead a bull market resumed after 2 months in anticipation of the halving.

There have been a lot of instances where major news that should've triggered a trend reversal didn't. After months of bear market, we see a bull market being carried over until the halving and beyond. These early bull markets are just smart investors positioning themselves before the event so as to maximize profit because the price at which the halving is triggered will eventually be a strong floor price (not absolute floor price) since most miners won't want to sell below or even on that price, they'd rather sell above it and investors are more than willing to buy above it due to its scarcity.

That's why I said from the get go, the cycle is anchored around the halving. That mechanism triggers a reaction in investors that influences the demand and supply curve of Bitcoin, and since the mechanism is periodically within a specific time frame, the supply and demand curve happens in the same way in a cycle-like manner.

[Charles-Tim]

These buys (bullish trend) don't happen immediately or exactly at the point of halving, wise traders start accumulating little by little over a 12 - 18 months period pending the event, positioning themselves before the big event so when it is time they'll be in so much profit. And then the process is repeated over and over again.

Now we will say why after the halving, we do see price still going low? That's for two reasons;

The last bitcoin halving was different. Bitcoin got to all-time high before halving, and bitcoin still continued to increase after a little fall that are not going beyond support prices. Although, bitcoin ETF was responsible for bitcoin price that increased significantly at the time.

This does not mean this time might or might not be different, but the four year halving is not yet over.

[SeriouslyGiveaway]

The last bitcoin halving was different. Bitcoin got to all-time high before halving, and bitcoin still continued to increase after a little fall that are not going beyond support prices. Although, bitcoin ETF was responsible for bitcoin price that increased significantly at the time.

This does not mean this time might or might not be different, but the four year halving is not yet over.

Since the latest market cycle, a new history of Bitcoin halving and how a new ATH made, people can stop saying "Bitcoin has never made its new ATH before a halving" but there is nothing bad with it.

The importance is with each halving, so far Bitcoin has always made its new ATHs for a new market cycle, and I believe it will remain true until another new history appears. I believe that Bitcoin market will have such new market cycle without new ATH when most of bitcoins in total supply already and effects from Bitcoin halving become too small. It's still a possibility but I think it won't come too soon.

[Charles-Tim]

I believe that Bitcoin market will have such new market cycle without new ATH when most of bitcoins in total supply already and effects from Bitcoin halving become too small. It's still a possibility but I think it won't come too soon.

Probably, but this is not happening soon. Not in 10 years from now. What I think for now is that the price bitcoin will reduce to during bear market will significantly be reducing as usual to the point they may not call it bear market anymore, and which will later result in another bull market many months after, but also in a way that the price rise will not be high compare to the last halving. This will drive bitcoin to $500000 and possibly $1 million also.

[Emjay24]

The importance is with each halving, so far Bitcoin has always made its new ATHs for a new market cycle, and I believe it will remain true until another new history appears. I believe that Bitcoin market will have such new market cycle without new ATH when most of bitcoins in total supply already and effects from Bitcoin halving become too small. It's still a possibility but I think it won't come too soon.

The good thing about bitcoin is that it's market conditions is very unpredictable, we could see another pattern overtime, but one thing I believe is that the volatility would continue to decrease in bear seasons and in the future, it might get to a situation where there would only be a slight difference between bear and bull seasons and in that scenario, the bull seasons wouldn't be going so high like 2X or more. Then bitcoin price would achieve some sort of stability and would not be treated as highly volatile, but be addressed as medium volatility or even less volatile asset.

I don't think a market without new ATHs is possible, unless when the last bitcoin is mined. The margin at which it is attained from previous ATHs might continue to narrow down over time.

[Sunshine1525]

I believe that Bitcoin market will have such new market cycle without new ATH when most of bitcoins in total supply already and effects from Bitcoin halving become too small. It's still a possibility but I think it won't come too soon.

People, whether traders or investors should learn to adapt to whatever pattern Bitcoin comes with, change would forever be constant and Bitcoin cycle wasn't left out. I created a thread in my LB sonetime ago that talks about the Bitcoin cycle not over but modified and that's a fact we should all get used to for now.

Probably, but this is not happening soon. Not in 10 years from now. What I think for now is that the price bitcoin will reduce to during bear market will significantly be reducing as usual to the point they may not call it bear market anymore, and which will later result in another bull market many months after, but also in a way that the price rise will not be high compare to the last halving. This will drive bitcoin to $500000 and possibly $1 million also.

The truth is that every cycle has it's all time high and lows, it has always follow that ryhthm regardless of pattern twist, speaking from an investment perspective, people who survive are those who don't gamble with their choices but remain focus on building their portfolio whether the market cycle pattern changes. But i agree with you Charles-Tim that it's not happening soon, cause all the 21m Bitcoins are not completely mined, we still have more halfing cycles to go before it's mined completely.

[Catenaccio]

Hello forum 👋🏻.  Hope we're all doing good. Okay, let's talk about the so called "4 years cycle".

For starters, I believe in the four years cycle, and that's probably because I'm a trader. Traders do often tend to look for patterns and structures in assets movements, and although some members will say that's just an illusion or a myth, they actually do work.

Bitcoin market is same for traders and investors and both can use Bitcoin market cycle for their investment or trading. It's wrong if you say only traders believing in Bitcoin four-year cycle while investors don't believe in it.

Traders are more active in the market than investors, and they are more likely short-sighted than investors are. They are also wanting to have profit in short term through trading because investment usually needs more time to bring profit.

Traders can have more attention on market patterns, fractals that are necessary for their trading decisions and actions with entries and exits. With investors, their main attention is on market cycle, and % corrections from ATHs to bottoms, ROIs of past market cycles.

Bitcoin market cycle.
Bitcoin bull market comparison.

[bitLeap]

If you look at the history of the highest prices then I think a significant decline has occurred several times this back. Even after the drop it touched the price of $57k and it was almost 45% of ATH. I am not very good at reading charts but in general this pattern has similarities with the previous cycle, so it shows that the post-halving cycle process will remain on track only the duration can be shorter or longer.

[purple_sparkles]

If you look at the history of the highest prices then I think a significant decline has occurred several times this back. Even after the drop it touched the price of $57k and it was almost 45% of ATH. I am not very good at reading charts but in general this pattern has similarities with the previous cycle, so it shows that the post-halving cycle process will remain on track only the duration can be shorter or longer.

Charts can help us see this cyclical pattern, and for someone who has been following bitcoin for a while, even one or two cycles can be enough to recognize the pattern and potentially make use of it. The four-year period is not a constant; it’s only an approximate timeframe that may fluctuate somewhat. But if you want to generate a good return from a bitcoin investment, you need to base your approach around this timeframe.

[crwth]

When I read the title, I immediately thought of the Bitcoin cycle, which repeats every 4 years. When that happens, there would be a decrease in supply, which means the daily new BTC would be smaller and smaller.

All I know is that halvings would have less impact from it unless there would be an increase in global liquidity or something in terms of the macroeconomics.

[EL MOHA]

The truth is that every cycle has it's all time high and lows, it has always follow that ryhthm regardless of pattern twist, speaking from an investment perspective, people who survive are those who don't gamble with their choices but remain focus on building their portfolio whether the market cycle pattern changes. But i agree with you Charles-Tim that it's not happening soon, cause all the 21m Bitcoins are not completely mined, we still have more halfing cycles to go before it's mined completely.

Any significant market cycle change will not necessarily be until the approximately 21 million total supply is fully mined we can even a change before then because right after the bitcoin halving of the year 2040 which will leave bitcoin reward at 0.19 BTC per block I think the dependence on bitcoin reward will reduce from their on and also as you have right pointed out too. The volatility will definitely be low because even now we see the signs of that reduction.

The last cycle change were we had bitcoin new ATH before halving was because of the hype around the approval of the ETF then and this early surge of bitcoin was what caused also the post halving bullish market not to be long enough like in the past. We can also make argument for volatility reduction which is clear, you don’t expect the market to have 10x in one cycle any more or something like 80% fall also in one bearish cycle too again.

[Merit.s]

I don't think that we will see a repetition of last circle halving this time because it will be difficult for bitcoin to pump above $126k without any big event that will influence the price like we had the lunch of bitcoin ETF last circle.

However, no one knows for sure if the price of bitcoin will be able to create a new ATH before the halving because the market is unpredictable and more investors and institutions will still adopt bitcoin.

[EluguHcman]

For starters, I believe in the four years cycle, and that's probably because I'm a trader. Traders do often tend to look for patterns and structures in assets movements, and although some members will say that's just an illusion or a myth, they actually do work.
You know what a hypothesis is, right? They are unproven theories, but after subjecting those hypothesis through numerous tests and experiments and see it holding up and playing out with regards to the hypothesis, then it becomes a real working theory.
In trading, the minimum for acceptance is 3; guess what, we've got 4 proven tests, so right now in my eyes and in the eyes of so many traders out there, the four years cycle is no longer a hypothesis.

Come to think of it, the pattern traders seeks in the market is tended to be the strategies that can be applicable with the expectations to yield them profits on taking the risks of predicting the Bitcoin price which usually is not easy to be predictable.
There are certainly dynamic ways to track the market movements which considering the motions of the volatility is the key point.

Trading can be daily, weekly or minimum of months activities because the essence of the trading to them that trades is not for the reason to hold their Bitcoin or assets as a store of value in the long term but chasing the risks of making quick or short term profits
The 4 years cycle is an event that meets up all the market volatile patterns in both bearish and the bullish patterns while it is Perhaps the 4 years cycle in question is a concern for investors patterns who can truly hold that patiently without having to trouble their minds on selling on before the time even when the market positions is not encouraging over short term performance or movements.

So it most profitable for long term investors and not traders. So check very well if you truly admires the 4 years cycle event because you are a trader or an investor.

[Cookdata]

I don't think that we will see a repetition of last circle halving this time because it will be difficult for bitcoin to pump above $126k without any big event that will influence the price like we had the lunch of bitcoin ETF last circle.

ETFs existed before Bitcoin halving, it was some months interval so we can't conclude they were the reason why we saw an all time high. As usual, Bitcoin do reach it's peak price a month before the halving, so you can't say exactly if it was the reason but I will agree that the news fuel the price because you know fomo was real, you can say Bitcoin is accepted by a firm and it will make a large move but Bitcoin halving does not even need a reason to move.

What I could remember was US election happened at the same year and it contributed to why Bitcoin saw a limelight, he made promises which fuel the whole community.

However, no one knows for sure if the price of bitcoin will be able to create a new ATH before the halving because the market is unpredictable and more investors and institutions will still adopt bitcoin.

The story has always been like this, who would have expected Bitcoin price to reach $125k so fast, I expected it at one point but not so soon the way we did. This is how we have been saying that "we don't think" this and that for the price just to see that the price has reach another level. Bitcoin price always does the unthinkable, so it will make sense to be on the bright side.

[sunsilk]

the cycle is anchored around the halving.

This is the signal for the others to go active again in holding bitcoin. When it's like the sluggish part like today, we're in a bear market.

They go somewhere or just become offline and trying to do other things where their money can flow to. The last halving was different.

We've seen a better price for bitcoin at that time and made new highs before it finally ends up with the ceiling that it has reached @ $126k.

[pooya87]

It is worth noting that the market is affected by a lot of different things which is why sometimes the 4-year cycle trend doesn't look like working. For example like the past 4-5 years, basically ever since the COVID pandemic that destroyed global economy and brought recession with it. Recession prevented the cycle from completing and getting big like previous times otherwise price would have been $400k right now after having dropped from a much higher level...

This event creates bitcoin scarcity coupled with its fixed supply of 21million coins, this makes bitcoin a highly disinflationary currency.

Halving doesn't technically create scarcity, and when we talk about mining and block reward we are talking about new supply being created and injected into circulation. To put simply the supply is actually rising.
To clarify: what creates "decreased supply" is not the total supply that is decreasing, it is the coins that are being sold on the market by the miners that is decreasing by 50%. That decreasing supply alongside the rising demand (adoption is growing) helps the price rise in that 4-year cycle.

P.S. Isn't the correct term "deflationary" instead of "disinflationary" for Bitcoin?

[d5000]

In trading, the minimum for acceptance is 3; guess what, we've got 4 proven tests,

False, there were only two or three complete cycles: 2013-2017, 2017-2021 and 2021-26 (still unproven). You can't count 2009-13, because there were three times the price collapsed 80% or more from its ATH in this period.

This event creates bitcoin scarcity coupled with its fixed supply of 21million coins, this makes bitcoin a highly disinflationary currency.

Now you might be asking what does this have to do with anything, well this brings us to my next point of discussion.

2. The economic implications of this mechanism :
We all know the law of supply and demand, right? And how scarcity is a driving force behind the abrupt increase in price of an asset. So yeah, the above mentioned mechanism increases demand naturally.

Halvings don't create scarcity. And scarcity doesn't "increase demand".

Scarcity is a situation where demand is higher than supply. But what some people get wrong is: even during halvings, supply does not reduce - only inflation (=newly added supply) is reduced.

The effect is minimal. In the last halving, inflation decreased from about 2% to about 1%.

Since we can estimate when this event will take place, traders are positioning themselves for it. This is what truly happens.

This is the only part which is correct in your theory imo. The "cycle" is mostly a self-fulfilling prophecy and it happens because of the traders' activity.

Halvings may have triggered the 2013 bull market, because back then it became very difficult to mine at home and people had to buy coins to speculate. But later halvings have much less incidence in the Bitcoin price than sentiment and speculation behavior.

silk road, after FBI shut down, it still continued to rally

Silk Road was not very important for the Bitcoin rally, MtGox was a much bigger factor. And I already wrote: in 2013, I believe the halving was indeed the trigger for the rally due to the increased mining costs.

the shutdown of miners in China didn't change the trend either.

Bitcoin crashed almost 50% after the China mining ban. But ... drumroll ... there was an event that reinstated hope and positive sentiment: the legal tender acceptance in El Salvador. Otherwise, very likely the 2021 top would have occurred in May/June, at the same times where most altcoins saw their ATH.

During the 2022 bear market triggered by Terra luna collapse, even with El Salvador adoption, the trend still didn't reverse.

The El Salvador adoption was a "buy the rumours, sell the news" event. And adoption in El Salvador was bumpy from the start, it generated more negative news in 2022 than positive (people selling their $30 Chivo credit instantly, merchants were struggling to adopt Bitcoin, and generally the acceptance was low). So this fits very well in the picture that the 2022 bear was news-driven.

Even when the FTT scandal happened in 2022 that drove price below its previous ATH, this would have triggered an either prolonged or a more aggressive bear market,

Bitcoin did fall 15-20% more after the FTX scandal.

So no, most of your examples are exactly the other way around

But you will for sure still find enough cyclists in this forum Enjoy the ride while it lasts -- eventually, I'm sure, the pattern will break. Maybe the strong support in the 60k area is already a sign of people frontrunning the "predicted market bottom" in the second half of 2026 ...

[Alpha Marine]

The 4-year cycle is simply caused by human speculation. There is nothing about Bitcoin that makes it so that there will be a bull season and a bear season every 4 years.
What happens is that people speculate that the price of Bitcoin will increase because of the halving, so they buy. This increase in demand increases the price of Bitcoin. After a couple of months, investors will start to take profit, especially institutional investors, so this causes a ripple effect, and more people start to sell, and that is how the bear season is created.
If, for whatever reason, people don't speculate that the price will increase after the halving, then there will be no bull season. But because of human behavior, people would always speculate.

[OsaiEmma]

It is worth noting that the market is affected by a lot of different things which is why sometimes the 4-year cycle trend doesn't look like working. For example like the past 4-5 years, basically ever since the COVID pandemic that destroyed global economy and brought recession with it. Recession prevented the cycle from completing and getting big like previous times otherwise price would have been $400k right now after having dropped from a much higher level...

Well, I won't say COVID caused it though.  The more the liquidity, the harder it is to push price higher. Despite the large adoption of Bitcoin, the price wasn't as explosive as it was in the early days because the liquidity is just crazily huge now. And we'll see more difficulty in pushing the price up as liquidity increases.

This event creates bitcoin scarcity coupled with its fixed supply of 21million coins, this makes bitcoin a highly disinflationary currency.

Halving doesn't technically create scarcity, and when we talk about mining and block reward we are talking about new supply being created and injected into circulation. To put simply the supply is actually rising.
To clarify: what creates "decreased supply" is not the total supply that is decreasing, it is the coins that are being sold on the market by the miners that is decreasing by 50%. That decreasing supply alongside the rising demand (adoption is growing) helps the price rise in that 4-year cycle.

P.S. Isn't the correct term "deflationary" instead of "disinflationary" for Bitcoin?

You're 100% right, thanks for this. Halving doesn't create scarcity, but it creates a sense of urgency to get. This is what I mean: when the disinflationary mechanism kicks in, investors would want to be the first in line to get it. I gave an example below here

Let's say, from the onset, there are only 2M users competing for Bitcoin and that's it. Satoshi said, I'll release bitcoin for you to buy but periodically and every time the number of coins to be released will be halved. Meanwhile we have 21M coins total supply.

Cool, now the users will be scrambling to stash as much as they can. In the first release, 6M were released, they all fought for it and got 3 each. In the next, 3M were released, some got more while the others got less. In the next release I'm sure they'll all be fighting for it; at this point, the highest bidder wins.

This is exactly what is happening to Bitcoin right now, and that's why I said the halving creates scarcity. The mechanism can't account for who will adopt the asset, it can only account for the asset itself, thus creating the disinflationary mechanism that creates a sense of scarcity as long as baseline demand persists.

This reaction creates a sense of scarcity, but that doesn't mean Bitcoin is scarce. The time factor in it makes it seem scarce but at the end of the day, the 21M coins will be released.

Deflationary in supply means that the total circulating supply is shrinking (like tokens are burned or something). At the end of the day, the 21M coins won't be what is actively circulated after it is completely mined.

Disinflationary is when the inflation of an asset is being controlled by cutting the rate in which new coins are issued or supplied (just as we have with halving).

In trading, the minimum for acceptance is 3; guess what, we've got 4 proven tests,

False, there were only two or three complete cycles: 2013-2017, 2017-2021 and 2021-26 (still unproven). You can't count 2009-13, because there were three times the price collapsed 80% or more from its ATH in this period.

We've had 4 cycles so far, although this last bottom made up the last cycle but we haven't seen a rally yet to say this is definitely the bottom, but it is still within the scope, we're just waiting for 2027 or maybe it might be early.

The halvings are: 2012, 2016, 2020 and 2024 source
The cycles are: 2011 - 2015, 2015 - 2019 , 2019 - 2023, 2023 - till date

 

Well you're right, the last one is inconclusive but it's obvious it will be.
I guess you're looking at it from top to top, but it's actually from bottom to bottom.

This event creates bitcoin scarcity coupled with its fixed supply of 21million coins, this makes bitcoin a highly disinflationary currency.

Now you mighxxt be asking what does this have to do with anything, well this brings us to my next point of discussion.

2. The economic implications of this mechanism :
We all know the law of supply and demand, right? And how scarcity is a driving force behind the abrupt increase in price of an asset. So yeah, the above mentioned mechanism increases demand naturally.
 

Halvings don't create scarcity. And scarcity doesn't "increase demand".

Scarcity is a situation where demand is higher than supply. But what some people get wrong is: even during halvings, supply does not reduce - only inflation (=newly added supply) is reduced.

The effect is minimal. In the last halving, inflation decreased from about 2% to about 1%.

Let's go with rate of supply cause that's the right terminology. As you rightfully said, the rate of supply dropped but marginally the rate of demand increased, that's why the price of Bitcoin does increase the way it does. If this is not scarcity, then what is?

The adoption curve increases often, so dropping the rate of supply is a good strategy to create scarcity, no? Even if demand rate remains at a baselin; say, 50M demand every year; and the supply rate remains the same too at 2M coins every year, then demand alone will determine how scarce the commodity will be. But in a situation where the supply rate is reduced periodically, demand alone won't affect scarcity: so even if demand rate remains at a baseline, it will still have a sense of scarcity because of the reduced supply rate.

Now you might say, this doesn't explain increase in demand, lemme give another instance with a more realistic setting.

Let's say, from the onset, there are only 2M users competing for Bitcoin and that's it. Satoshi said, I'll release bitcoin for you to buy but periodically and every time the number of coins to be released will be halved. Meanwhile we have 21M coins total supply.

Cool, now the users will be scrambling to stash as much as they can. In the first release, 6M were released, they all fought for it and got 3 each. In the next, 3M were released, some got more while the others got less. In the next release I'm sure they'll all be fighting for it; at this point, the highest bidder wins.

This is exactly what is happening to Bitcoin right now, and that's why I said the halving creates scarcity. The mechanism can't account for who will adopt the asset, it can only account for the asset itself, thus creating the disinflationary mechanism that creates a sense of scarcity as long as baseline demand persists.

Halvings may have triggered the 2013 bull market, because back then it became very difficult to mine at home and people had to buy coins to speculate. But later halvings have much less incidence in the Bitcoin price than sentiment and speculation behavior.

Bitcoin and most assets out there are highly speculative, but the halving creates a sense of direction. Saying the halving has much less incidence than speculation in Bitcoin is like saying NFP news has much less incidence to USD pairs in forex whenever it is released. Just like the NFP, the halving creates room for speculation.

silk road, after FBI shut down, it still continued to rally

Silk Road was not very important for the Bitcoin rally, MtGox was a much bigger factor. And I already wrote: in 2013, I believe the halving was indeed the trigger for the rally due to the increased mining costs.

And yet the market has kept up with the same pattern with the halving as a constant factor. We can all agree to disagree, but the truth is the halving gives traders a sense of direction and it hasn't been wrong so far.

the shutdown of miners in China didn't change the trend either.

Bitcoin crashed almost 50% after the China mining ban. But ... drumroll ... there was an event that reinstated hope and positive sentiment: the legal tender acceptance in El Salvador. Otherwise, very likely the 2021 top would have occurred in May/June, at the same times where most altcoins saw their ATH.

And yet such massive news that was incredibly hyped didn't change the timeline or completely reverse the trend; it went back to test the top, creating a double top, and reversed back downwards. Meanwhile, this news only caused a 2-month rally, still holding up with the cycle's timeline.

I'm not saying news doesn't affect price, I'm saying it doesn't control the trend.

During the 2022 bear market triggered by Terra luna collapse, even with El Salvador adoption, the trend still didn't reverse.

The El Salvador adoption was a "buy the rumours, sell the news" event. And adoption in El Salvador was bumpy from the start, it generated more negative news in 2022 than positive (people selling their $30 Chivo credit instantly, merchants were struggling to adopt Bitcoin, and generally the acceptance was low). So this fits very well in the picture that the 2022 bear was news-driven.

You said above that El Salvador changed the narrative, and now you claim it also contributed to the sell. Okay, so which news caused the 2023 rally? I think you're now shifting the narrative. I remember the Luna collapse very well, it created massive FUD that triggered a bear market. And honestly, you're the first I've ever heard saying the El Salvador adoption created a decline in Bitcoin price.

Even when the FTT scandal happened in 2022 that drove price below its previous ATH, this would have triggered an either prolonged or a more aggressive bear market,

Bitcoin did fall 15-20% more after the FTX scandal.

So no, most of your examples are exactly the other way around

But you will for sure still find enough cyclists in this forum Enjoy the ride while it lasts -- eventually, I'm sure, the pattern will break. Maybe the strong support in the 60k area is already a sign of people frontrunning the "predicted market bottom" in the second half of 2026 ...

I never said news doesn't cause change in price, but it happens momentarily. They don't change the overall trend or the timeline with respect to the 4-year cycle.

The FTT scandal bottomed price at 15k and this happened 10 days after the scandal. After the bottom, price immediately went back up, following a precise pattern of less than ±3% of its previous ATH.

If we claim macro-economic news is the driving force behind these trends, why didn't this news cause a major shift in trend? Why did the price instead keep to a structured pattern and timeline despite this news?

The 4-year cycle is simply caused by human speculation. There is nothing about Bitcoin that makes it so that there will be a bull season and a bear season every 4 years.
What happens is that people speculate that the price of Bitcoin will increase because of the halving, so they buy. This increase in demand increases the price of Bitcoin. After a couple of months, investors will start to take profit, especially institutional investors, so this causes a ripple effect, and more people start to sell, and that is how the bear season is created.
If, for whatever reason, people don't speculate that the price will increase after the halving, then there will be no bull season. But because of human behavior, people would always speculate.

So why do you think people speculate the halving will cause price to increase?

If you claim there is nothing about Bitcoin that creates these seasons, and you go ahead to say their speculations on price increase based on halving causes the season, then where does the halving they speculate on come from?

Is the halving not a mechanism hard-coded in Bitcoin?

[Alpha Marine]

So why do you think people speculate the halving will cause price to increase?

If you claim there is nothing about Bitcoin that creates these seasons, and you go ahead to say their speculations on price increase based on halving causes the season, then where does the halving they speculate on come from?

Is the halving not a mechanism hard-coded in Bitcoin?

People speculate because that is what people do with financial instruments. When the Strait of Hormuz was blocked, people speculated that the cost of oil would go up. When a publicly traded company acquires another company, people speculate that the stock price of that company will go up. When the supply of any product is reduced, if the demand remains the same, the price will go up. This is something that happens to any other asset, not because it was hard-coded in Bitcoin.
The halving was hard-coded, but the 4-year cycle was not. If people don't sell in mass when Bitcoin peaks, then there will be no bear season. A time can come when so many people don't sell their bitcoin when the price peaks, it doesn't mean the price will not fall, but there won't be a bear market.

People speculate over a lot of things in Bitcoin. Right now, people are speculating about the Clarity Act. People speculated about ETFs, people speculated about Donald Trump winning the election. All these are not hard coded into Bitcoin, they are just economic behaviors and so is people's reaction to the halving.
Like I've already said, the halving is hard coded, but the 4 year cycle is not. If people don't react a certain way to it, then we won't have a cycle, but no matter how bitcoin performs, there will be a halving.