Matt Hougan, Chief Investment Officer at Bitwise, has concluded that the four-year cycles for Bitcoin are no longer relevant. The forces that once shaped these cycles have weakened under new conditions.
Why is the four-year cycle dead?
1) The forces that have created prior four-year cycles are weaker:
i) The halving is half as important every four years;
ii) The interest rate cycle is positive for crypto, not negative (as it was in 2018 and 2022);
iii) Blow-up risk is… https://t.co/F9ybjHEeB5
— Matt Hougan (@Matt_Hougan) July 25, 2025
The expert highlighted the following changes:
- Halvings used to cause a “demand shock,” but they have been replaced by the constant increasing purchases of cryptocurrency by institutions and corporations;
- The risk of collapse has diminished due to improved regulation and institutionalization of the industry;
- A new trend over the next 5-10 years is the inflow of funds into BTC-ETFs, with traditional financial institutions just beginning to join.
Legislative support, such as the recent passage of the GENIUS Act, is facilitating the entry of Wall Street players into the market, who are expected to invest “billions in the coming years,” Hougan asserts.
He added that in terms of macroeconomics, the correlation with changes in the Fed’s interest rates has become positive, rather than negative as it was in 2018 and 2022.
“All this suggests that long-term pro-crypto forces will crush the classic factors of the ‘four-year cycle,’ if they exist at all. 2026 will be favorable. I might be wrong, but we are in for significant volatility. And I think it’s more of a ‘sustained, steady boom’ than a supercycle,” Hougan stated.
However, he pointed out one “significant risk” to watch for—the boom in the formation of corporate Bitcoin treasuries.
Recently, CryptoQuant founder and CEO Ki Young Ju acknowledged that the cycle theory of the first cryptocurrency no longer works. The analyst apologized for his previous erroneous forecasts.
Earlier, Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley estimated that the total target volume of Bitcoin encompasses the gold and U.S. Treasury bond markets, valued at $16 trillion and $30 trillion respectively.