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The Bitcoin four-year cycle is breaking down. Here’s why market structure, liquidity, ETFs, and institutions point to a longer super-cycle.
Author: Tanishq Bodh
November 2025: Bitcoin is down 30% from its all-time high. Dominance sits above 58%. The commentariat declares the Bitcoin four-year cycle alive and well. They point to the chart and say it is the classic post-halving comedown and expect two quiet years and a new run later.
They are half right. The old Bitcoin four-year cycle is finished. What replaces it looks nothing like 2013, 2017, or 2021. Today’s market trades on deeper liquidity, new pipes, and balance sheets that do not panic. This cluster breaks down the shift. You will see what changed in 2024–2025, where we sit in the liquidity arc, and how the next legs may unfold without an 80% crash.
From 2012 to 2021, crypto behaved like a machine. The pattern was simple:
This worked because the market was small. Retail drove flows. Supply shocks mattered. Narratives ignited fast. Liquidity vanished faster. Each halving year delivered a powerful impulse. Roughly twelve months later, it peaked. Then the air came out all at once.
In 2013, Bitcoin rallied nearly a hundred times from the lows while in 2017, Bitcoin surged again while Ethereum posted life-changing returns during the ICO boom. In 2021, the move was smaller in multiples yet still huge. Every time, the end looked the same: forced selling, failed collateral, and long winters.
That world is gone. The Bitcoin four-year cycle no longer explains the moves we see now.
The 2024 halving arrived in April. Over the next eighteen months, Bitcoin climbed about 740% and printed a new high near 126K in October 2025. Then the market corrected 30%. In past cycles, a 30% break often turned into a 50–70% collapse. This time it did not.
What changed:
Zoom in and you can call it a top. Zoom out and the structure is different. The Bitcoin four-year cycle relied on thin liquidity and reflexive leverage. Today, the floor sits under larger balance sheets and regulated vehicles. That floor is not perfect. It is stickier.
Old world
New reality
Crypto is not a toy market now. It is becoming financial infrastructure. The network can absorb sellers. The investor mix is wider. The Bitcoin four-year cycle lost its primary driver: a narrow, fragile demand stack.
Global liquidity troughed in late 2022. It has trended higher since then. Fiscal dominance, heavy rollover needs, and easy financial conditions keep the tide biased upward. Risk assets respond first. Crypto responds fastest.
Inside this super-cycle, price action looks like a banana on a log chart. The curve has three parts:
Banana 1 — Breakout (Q4 2024 to Q2 2025)
Bitcoin cleared 100K and topped at 126K. That was the first leg.
Banana Middle — Corrective / Re-accumulation (June to December 2025)
This is where we are now. It is long. It is noisy. Expect 30–50% swings, failed rallies, and stubborn ranges. Leverage gets reset. Tourists step back. Strong hands reload.
Banana 2 and 3 — Acceleration and Mania (from Q1 2026)
This is where altcoins finally fire. Dominance fades toward the mid-40s. The risk curve steepens, but within a sturdier structure than 2017 or 2021.
The headline: liquidity still favors higher prices over the next legs. The Bitcoin four-year cycle view misses that the liquidity arc now stretches longer and overlaps regulated demand.
Markets breathe in phases. They sprint, retrace and compress. Then they expand again. The longer the base, the larger the next move.
Recent foundations are not trivial:
Past cycles had rocket fuel and cardboard wings. This cycle has a touch less fuel but titanium wings. The runway is wider. That matters when the next acceleration starts. The Bitcoin four-year cycle assumed a short runway and thin air. Today the runway keeps lengthening.
Q4 2025 to Q2 2026
From Q1 2026
The important part: the final push does not require an 80% crash to end it. Institutional portfolios will scale risk down in steps rather than capitulate. That shifts the next consolidation up the staircase. The Bitcoin four-year cycle expected a cliff. A staircase changes portfolio math.
A new structure does not remove risk. It reshapes it.
These risks argue for staged entries, diversified bets, and respect for ranges. They do not re-install the Bitcoin four-year cycle as the master template.
For Bitcoin
Ethereum and large caps
Mid caps and sectors
Risk management
Strategies that worked in the Bitcoin four-year cycle era were binary. Today the winners compound in steps.
Three drivers ended the Bitcoin four-year cycle:
The machine that produced 12-month blow-offs and 80% winter crashes needed thin pipes. The pipes got thick. The timing got messy. The amplitude flattened. The duration extended.
The four-year rhythm did not die of natural causes. Maturity killed it. The October 2025 high was not a classic cycle top. It marked the end of the first banana leg and the start of institutional accumulation for the next phase.
Act II is loading. The base is wide. The pipes are ready. The balance sheets are patient. Liquidity is still rising on a multi-year view. Policy is building a runway instead of roadblocks.
History will not repeat. It will rhyme, louder and longer. The Bitcoin four-year cycle belongs to a market that no longer exists. What comes next is a longer, staggered super-cycle that climbs a staircase, pauses on landings, and then climbs again.
Higher prices are still ahead.
All the opinions in this article are that of the author and in no way are financial advice. Our Crypto Talk and the author always suggest you do your own research in crypto and to never take anything as financial advice that you read on the internet. Check our Terms and conditions for more info.
