Is the four-year cycle dead?
In this article, I’ll answer that question, explain why the past two years have changed everything, and then offer a very important recommendation. Let’s get started.
What is the four-year cycle?
This four-year cycle stems from the fundamentals of Bitcoin. Every four years, Bitcoin’s inflation rate is cut in half. Back in 2012, the first halving event reduced the issuance of new Bitcoins by 50%, from 50 BTC per block to 25 BTC.
This has had a huge impact on the supply and demand balance of Bitcoin, especially during the first two halving events in 2012 and 2016. At that time, the price of Bitcoin soared as supply could not keep up with demand. Other cryptocurrencies (altcoins) also rose with it.
However, the impact of each new halving event on price is diminishing. The most recent Bitcoin halving in 2024 only reduced the issuance of new Bitcoins from 6.25 BTC to 3.12 BTC.
Considering that almost 95% of all Bitcoin is already in circulation (nearly 20 million BTC out of 21 million BTC), the impact of future halving events on price is rapidly becoming negligible.
What worked a few years ago, no longer works today. You can’t “print free money” by buying any cryptocurrency like you could in the past. Today, we have new factors that have a more fundamental impact on crypto cycles than Bitcoin’s halving schedule.
Its time to upgrade your thinking! More on that below.
Why has everything changed in the past two years?
Two things that have changed the cryptocurrency space over the past two years are:
Cryptocurrency ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) launched
Altcoin inflation
In early 2024, Bitcoin received its first ETF approval. This suddenly opened up the global market for Bitcoin. Now, anyone can add Bitcoin to their retirement portfolio, which was not possible in the past.
This represents a massive influx of new money into Bitcoin that didn’t exist before. But there’s a problem.
As money flows into Bitcoin ETFs, this creates buying pressure on the Bitcoin spot price. However, this liquidity never really leaves the Bitcoin ETF and flows into altcoins, because there are no altcoin ETFs other than Ethereum. And demand for Ethereum ETFs has been disappointing so far, totaling only $2.5 billion.
As of early 2025, almost all ETF liquidity has flowed to Bitcoin, totaling $40 billion, as shown in the chart. No wonder Ethereum has been declining against Bitcoin for years. The same is true for most altcoins.
This is why, for the past two years, everyone is still waiting for a “real” altcoin season that may never actually come. The November 2024 altcoin rally pales in comparison to previous cycles.
While SOL, XRP, BNB, and TRX have set new all-time highs, these prices are not far from past highs, while most altcoins, such as Ethereum or ADA, have failed to set new all-time highs. This clearly shows that altcoins are lagging behind compared to Bitcoin.
What is the reason?
Dilution of altcoins.
There are simply too many altcoins today (in the millions) compared to previous cycles. I explored this in detail in a past article. In short, the altcoin season was hijacked by Solana and its meme coins. This essentially sucked all liquidity out of altcoins.
Soon after, when Solana’s music was the loudest, Trump entered the stage in January 2025 and broke up the party. This also ended the meme coin season, with most meme coins plummeting 80% to 90% since then.
The funds or liquidity in cryptocurrencies are limited and are now divided among millions of altcoins. Moreover, Bitcoin is taking an increasing share. Just look at BTC’s market dominance, which is the highest since 2021, over 60%!
Altcoins are in a tough spot. They only make up 40% of the market, and with millions of coins out there, there isn’t much money left for the altcoin season. If you’re going to play the altcoin game, you really need to choose carefully.
This brings me to an interesting analogy. In tennis, there are two types of matches that players engage in:
People who play the loser game (altcoins)
People who play the winner game (Bitcoin)
In the first case, tennis players must try to minimize their errors because by doing so they can beat most of their opponents who make more errors. It is a losers game because losing less than most people makes you a winner.
In the second case, the tennis players are the best of the best. Their game is no longer about losing points, but about technique and being a winner. It is a winners game played by winners (top players).
In crypto, if you play the altcoin game, you are playing the loser game, and to win you need to pick altcoins that lose less than other coins. However, you can completely ignore this and choose to play the winner game by buying Bitcoin!
It’s time to look at Bitcoin and why it will continue to win regardless of the narrative of four-year cycles, which is no longer relevant based on what has happened in the past two years.
Why Bitcoin is still king?
I promised you a piece of advice at the beginning of this article.
The goal is to play the winner games and focus on Bitcoin. That’s how you win in the long term. Limit your exposure to loser games (altcoins) to a manageable amount. Otherwise, things can get ugly fast.
With that premise in mind, here are 10 reasons why betting on Bitcoin makes you a winner:
Fiat (USD) dilution - Central banks cant stop printing fiat money. Look at gold, it keeps hitting new highs. Same thing with Bitcoin in 2024, that $100k resistance will eventually break too. Be patient.
Inflation - Its easy to print new dollars out of thin air, but you cant print Bitcoin out of thin air. This makes Bitcoin the hardest currency on Earth. Thats where you store your wealth.
Quantitative tightening is coming to an end - which means quantitative easing is coming, which will make the dilution and inflation of fiat currencies inevitable.
· Global money supply hits all-time high - Its not just the US that is diluting the wealth of its citizens, every country is doing it, just at different rates. Look at the price of Bitcoin in Turkish Lira.
· Gold - There seems to be no end in sight to its record-breaking price run since late 2023. Whats better than gold? Bitcoin. Why is everyone buying gold? Because of points 1 to 4. Its only a matter of time before people accept Bitcoin, too.
· Cryptocurrency ETFs - Calling them cryptocurrencies is a bit misleading, as 95% of the money flowing into Bitcoin ETFs has been in Bitcoin ETFs. This is even more skewed towards BTC than Bitcoin’s 60% market dominance.
Altcoin Dilution - You can’t dilute Bitcoin. You can’t copy-paste it because you can’t replicate its billions of dollars worth of security and mining equipment.
Countries are buying Bitcoin - Look at El Salvador. More and more countries are adding Bitcoin to their sovereign wealth funds.
US Strategic Cryptocurrency Reserve – This is basically what it means. No further explanation needed.
You have no better choice - the only reliable currencies today are Bitcoin and gold, and the former has clear advantages.
While Bitcoin’s four-year cycle will continue to exist, its impact on price will be marginal at best. In that sense, the argument no longer holds. However, the case to continue buying Bitcoin is stronger than ever.
I cannot say the same for altcoins.
The game gets harder and harder, and picking winners becomes a losers game over time. This is the exact opposite of betting on Bitcoin and more like betting on the Turkish Lira to protect your wealth. We also know how that ends.
