Cryptocurrency Cycle Chronicles: Seven Industry Veteran Investors Analyze the Truth Behind the "Four-Year Curse"

In the nearly two decades since the birth of Bitcoin, the “four-year cycle” has almost become a collective belief among participants in the crypto market. Halving drives supply contraction, price rallies follow one after another, and altcoin seasons come and go. This logic not only explains the patterns of multiple bull and bear transitions in history but also profoundly influences institutional accumulation rhythms, primary market financing cycles, and even the industry’s understanding of the time dimension.

However, since the 2024 halving, market performance has broken many people’s expectations. Bitcoin surged from $60,000 to a record high of $126,000, with the increase being noticeably less than previous cycles. Altcoins have been even more lackluster, and global macro liquidity and policy variables have instead become key market anchors. Especially after the entry of spot ETFs, institutional funds, and traditional financial instruments in large scale, a question has been continuously discussed: Does the four-year cycle in the crypto market still hold persuasive power?

To answer this question, we interviewed seven seasoned investors and industry insiders with years of experience in crypto,整理 their views on market cycles, market structure, risk assessment, and position allocation.

The Essence of the Four-Year Cycle: From Supply Mechanism to Liquidity Game

Before evaluating whether the cycle has “failed,” we first need to clarify a fundamental question: what exactly is the core focus of the “four-year cycle” we are discussing?

According to the consensus among interviewees, the traditional four-year cycle is mainly driven by Bitcoin’s halving events every four years. Halving means a decrease in new supply, changes in miner incentives, and long-term support for the price center—this is the most mathematically grounded part of the four-year cycle narrative.

However, deeper perspectives incorporate this phenomenon into a broader financial framework. Some industry analysts see the four-year cycle as a dual-driven process of political cycles and liquidity cycles, rather than merely a technical halving pattern. The four-year cycle closely coincides with U.S. election cycles and the rhythm of global central banks’ liquidity releases. In early years, the large amount of newly minted Bitcoin per cycle was the main focus, but as spot ETFs have been approved, and Bitcoin has entered the macro asset sequence, variables like the Fed’s balance sheet expansion rate and global M2 growth have become the real core determinants of the cycle. Mathematically speaking, the current cycle (2024-2028) will only add about 600,000 BTC, which relative to the 19 million total supply, represents less than $60 billion in new selling pressure—easily absorbed by Wall Street.

Interaction of Mechanism and Narrative: Is the Cycle a Law or a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy?

An unavoidable deep question is: Is the four-year cycle an objective economic law, or a market narrative that is believed collectively and thus continually self-fulfilling?

The consensus among interviewees is: The four-year cycle is the result of the combined effects of an objective mechanism and market narrative, but different dominant forces emerge at different stages.

In the early days of abundant miner output, the four-year cycle indeed had extraordinary significance. But this supply-demand cycle exhibits clear marginal effects. As halving events have occurred multiple times, the impact of halving on supply and demand diminishes. Consequently, the price increases in each bull market tend to follow a logarithmic reduction—meaning the next halving cycle will produce a smaller price impact.

As Bitcoin’s market cap expands, the influence of purely supply-side changes diminishes. The current cycle is more driven by liquidity and narrative self-fulfillment. From a market behavior perspective, the four-year cycle has a degree of “self-fulfillment” characteristic. As institutional and retail participation structures evolve, the relative importance of macro policies, regulatory environments, liquidity conditions, and halving events are re-ordered each cycle. In this dynamic game, the four-year cycle is no longer an “iron law” but just one of many influencing factors.

The overall judgment is: The four-year cycle had a solid supply-demand foundation in its early days, but as miners’ influence wanes and Bitcoin shifts toward an asset allocation attribute, the cycle is transitioning from a strong mechanism-driven process to a result of combined narratives, behaviors, and macro factors. The current cycle has gradually shifted from a “hard constraint” to a “soft expectation.”

The Truth Behind Smaller Price Rallies: Marginal Effects or Structural Change?

Why has the recent halving resulted in a much smaller rally than before? Almost all interviewees point in the same direction: This is a natural consequence of diminishing marginal effects, not a sudden failure of the cycle.

Any growth market experiences exponential diminishing returns. As Bitcoin’s market cap continues to grow, each new “multiplication” requires exponential capital inflows, so declining returns are a natural law. From this perspective, “it didn’t rally as much as before” aligns with long-term logic.

Deeper changes stem from the market structure itself. The biggest difference in this cycle compared to past ones is the early entry of spot ETFs and institutional funds. In the previous cycle, Bitcoin’s all-time high was mainly driven by retail marginal liquidity; in this cycle, over $50 billion in ETF funds have flowed in before and around the halving, absorbing supply shocks before they even fully materialize. This causes price increases to be smoothed over a longer time frame, rather than concentrated as parabolic explosions post-halving.

As Bitcoin reaches the trillion-dollar level, lower volatility becomes an inevitable result of a mainstream asset. When market cap was smaller, capital inflows could produce exponential rises; now, even doubling requires enormous additional capital.

In future markets, halving is gradually becoming a “variable that still exists but with decreasing importance.” The real drivers of trend will be institutional fund flows, RWA (real-world assets) demand, and macro liquidity conditions.

Some also argue that halving raises Bitcoin’s production cost, which ultimately imposes a long-term price ceiling. Even as the industry matures and overall returns decline, halving will still exert a positive influence on prices through cost elevation, but this influence will no longer manifest as dramatic volatility.

The comprehensive view is: The marginal impact of halving is decreasing, while ETF and institutional flows are changing the rhythm and form of price discovery. This is not a failure of halving but a market that no longer revolves around a single halving event explosion.

Divergences in the Current Market Stage: Early Bear or Mid Slow Bull?

Standing at this moment, is the crypto market in a bull phase, a bear phase, or some kind of transitional stage that hasn’t been precisely named? This is where the interviewees’ opinions diverge most.

The pessimistic camp believes this is a typical early bear market, just that the bull market’s end hasn’t been widely recognized. Their judgment is based on the most fundamental cost and return structure. In the last cycle, Bitcoin mining costs were about $20,000, with prices peaking at $69,000, giving miners nearly 70% profit margins. In this cycle, post-halving mining costs are close to $70,000, and even at the $126,000 high, profit margins are just over 40%. As a nearly 20-year-old industry, declining returns per cycle are normal. Unlike 2020-2021, this cycle has seen large amounts of capital flowing into AI assets rather than crypto.

Technical analysts believe the market hasn’t entered a true cyclical bear yet but is already in a technical bear—marked by weekly chart prices breaking below the MA50. Past bull markets have seen technical bear phases in late stages, but that doesn’t mean the cycle is ending immediately. True cyclical bear markets often require macroeconomic recession confirmation. Currently, the stage can be described as a “probationary state”: the technical structure has weakened, but macro conditions haven’t given a final verdict. When stablecoins also stop growing for over two months, the bear market will be truly confirmed.

The optimistic camp generally agrees that the cycle has already failed and that we are in a mid-term correction of a bull market, likely transitioning into a sideways or slow bull phase. Their view is based on global macro liquidity. The U.S. has few options but to continue easing monetary policy to delay debt pressures. The rate cut cycle has just begun, and the liquidity “tap” remains open. As long as global M2 continues to expand, crypto assets—being highly sensitive to liquidity—will maintain an upward trend.

A true bear market signal would be when central banks start tightening liquidity substantially or when the real economy faces severe recession, leading to liquidity exhaustion. Currently, these indicators show no abnormality. From leverage ratios, if contract holdings are disproportionately high relative to market cap, it often signals short-term adjustments rather than a bear market.

Additionally, Wall Street and institutions are reconstructing the financial system based on blockchain, with increasingly stable chip structures, no longer prone to wild swings like early retail-driven markets. With Fed chair changes, rate cut cycles, and the launch of the most friendly crypto policies in history, the current volatility can be viewed as wide-ranging oscillations, and in the medium to long term, as a bull market.

The divergence itself may be the most authentic feature of this stage. A small sample, though imperfect, shows: some have already confirmed a bear market, others are waiting for data to give the final answer, but most believe the four-year cycle theory has basically failed.

From Sentiment Bull to Structural Bull: The Core Drivers of a Slow Bull

If the four-year cycle is weakening, and the future crypto market no longer exhibits clear bull-bear switches but instead enters a prolonged sideways upward or compressed bear phase, where does the core momentum come from?

First is systemic decline in fiat currency credibility and normalization of institutional allocations. As Bitcoin is increasingly regarded as “digital gold” and enters the asset-liability sheets of sovereign states, pensions, and hedge funds, its upward logic no longer depends on single-cycle events but resembles long-term assets like gold—“long-term assets against fiat devaluation.” Its price performance will also show a spiral upward.

Simultaneously, the importance of stablecoins is repeatedly emphasized. Compared to Bitcoin, stablecoins have a larger potential user base and a more accessible penetration path into the real economy. From payments, settlement, to cross-border capital flows, stablecoins are becoming the “interface layer” of new financial infrastructure. This means future growth in crypto won’t rely solely on speculation but will gradually embed into real financial and commercial activities.

The future slow bull will also be driven by continued institutional adoption. Whether through spot ETFs or tokenization of RWAs, as long as institutional allocation persists, the market will exhibit a “compound interest” growth pattern—volatility smoothed out, but the trend sustained.

Another direct logic is: since BTCUSD’s right side is the US dollar, as long as global liquidity remains long-term loose and the dollar stays in a weak cycle, asset prices won’t enter a deep bear but will slowly oscillate upward through technical bear phases. The traditional bull-bear structure will shift toward a “long-term oscillation-boost-long-term oscillation” pattern similar to gold.

It’s worth noting that not everyone agrees with the “slow bull” narrative. Some believe macroeconomic structural issues remain unresolved: worsening employment, youth unemployment, wealth concentration, ongoing geopolitical risks. In such a context, a serious economic crisis in 2026-2027 is not unlikely. If macro systemic risks erupt, crypto assets will also find it hard to be immune.

To some extent, the slow bull is not a consensus but a conditional judgment based on continued liquidity.

The Absence of Altcoin Seasons: Structural Evolution or Market Cooling?

“Altcoin season” is almost an inseparable part of the four-year cycle narrative. But in this cycle, its absence has become one of the most discussed phenomena.

The poor performance of altcoins in this cycle has multiple reasons. First, Bitcoin’s rising dominance creates a “risk asset safe haven” pattern, making institutional funds prefer blue-chip assets. Second, regulatory frameworks are maturing, favoring long-term adoption of utility tokens with clear use cases and compliance. Third, this cycle lacks the killer applications and clear narratives like DeFi and NFTs that characterized the previous cycle.

Industry consensus is: There may be new altcoin seasons in the future, but they will be more selective, focusing only on a few tokens with real use cases and income generation.

A more radical view is that the traditional concept of an altcoin season is no longer possible. “Traditional” here means a reasonable number of altcoins within a certain range; currently, the total number of altcoins has hit unprecedented highs. Even with macro liquidity inflows, the market will be a “crowd of many, few with meat,” unable to produce a broad rally. Therefore, even if altcoin seasons occur, they will be isolated, sector-specific phenomena. Paying attention to individual altcoins is less meaningful; focus should be on sectors and themes.

From a US stock analogy, future altcoin performance will resemble the M7 effect—blue-chip altcoins outperform the market long-term, small-cap altcoins occasionally surge but lack sustainability.

Ultimately, the market structure has changed. It used to be driven by retail attention economy; now it is driven by institutional reporting economy. This shift is increasingly influencing interactions between primary and secondary markets.

Practical Perspective: Insights from Industry Veterans on Positioning

In such a market with blurred cycle structures and fractured narratives, the actual position distributions of interviewees also reveal deep market judgments.

A striking fact is: Most interviewees have already largely cleared their altcoin positions, mostly holding half positions or less.

In defensive allocations, they prefer to use gold instead of USD as cash management tools to hedge fiat risk. In digital assets, most positions are in BTC and ETH, with caution on ETH. They favor high-certainty assets, i.e., hard currencies (Bitcoin) and exchange stocks or related primary market assets.

For risk management, they strictly adhere to the rule: cash holdings should not be less than 50%, with core allocations in BTC and ETH, and altcoin positions below 10%. For overvalued US stocks in AI sectors, they use very low leverage for some short positions.

There are also more aggressive strategies. Some funds are nearly fully allocated but with a similar structure: core in ETH, stablecoin logic, supplemented by large-cap assets like BTC, BCH, BNB. The core logic is not cycle betting but long-term bets on public chains, stablecoins, and exchanges.

In stark contrast, some have completely liquidated all crypto holdings, including selling BTC near $110,000. They believe they can buy back below $70,000 in the next two years. Their US stock allocations are also defensive, mainly in defensive and cyclical stocks, planning to liquidate most US stocks before next year’s World Cup.

Bottom-Fishing Timing: Ideal Price Levels and Risk Discipline

This is the most operational question among all. Regarding timing for bottom-fishing, interviewees’ opinions vary significantly.

The pessimists believe the bottom is far from reached. The true bottom appears only when “no one dares to bottom-fish anymore.”

The cautious group provides a relatively clear target: The ideal bottom or dollar-cost averaging entry point is below $60,000. The logic is simple: after halving, start buying gradually at about half the peak price, a strategy proven successful in every bull cycle. This target won’t be reached in the short term, but after 1-2 months of wide-range oscillation, next year could test prices above $100,000, though probably not setting new highs. Once macro monetary easing ends and the market lacks further liquidity and new narratives, it will officially enter a cyclical bear, and patience will be needed until monetary policy again initiates a new round of easing and aggressive rate cuts.

Many others adopt a more neutral or slightly bullish stance. They believe now may not be the “aggressive bottom-fishing” moment, but a window to start building positions gradually. The only consensus is: avoid leverage, avoid frequent trading, and discipline is more important than judgment.

In conclusion, the qualitative change of the four-year cycle is not an overnight event but a slow evolution amid multi-layered changes in market structure, participant composition, and policy environment. Throughout this process, what remains unchanged is reverence for risk and understanding of mechanisms; what changes is the definition of “time” and the way “opportunities” are captured.