BITCOIN: THE END OF CYCLES?
Share
Bitcoin has often been presented as a clock. A strange clock, whose hands don't revolve around a dial but advance block after block, etching a rhythm into time that no one can stop. Every 210,000 blocks, the miners' reward is halved. It's a cold, implacable mechanism, written into the heart of the protocol. It's not discussed, it's not traded. It falls like a season. And around this season, for the past fifteen years, a mythology has been built that Bitcoiners know by heart: after each halving, the market goes crazy, the price explodes, then comes the hangover. Bull market, bear market, then rebirth. As if Bitcoin breathes at this rhythm, as if the most unpredictable asset in the world were actually predictable.
But this question is now coming back insistently: is this model still valid? Will Bitcoin, which has become a toy of institutions, an asset listed on the stock exchange via ETFs, a reserve tool for billion-dollar companies, continue to follow this halving → bull → bear cycle? Or has the entry of new players broken the cycle?
We have to start from the beginning to understand the power of this cyclicality. In 2012, the first halving: Bitcoin dropped from 50 to 25 BTC per block. Miners cried foul, but the opposite effect occurred. The dwindling supply pushed the price upwards. At the end of 2013, it was close to $1,000. Then the market collapsed by 80%, leaving a generation of investors drained but also convinced that they had seen promise. In 2016, the second halving: from 25 to 12.5 BTC. Another rise, new euphoria, $20,000 in December 2017, another 80% drop. Then the scenario repeated itself after the 2020 halving: $69,000 in 2021, collapse in 2022, before the resurrection. Each time, the same ballet. Those new to Bitcoin think it's a speculative bubble. Those who have already experienced it smile: it's the cycle, simply the cycle.
This regularity created a strange confidence. In a financial world dominated by uncertainty, Bitcoin seemed almost mechanical. You didn't need a prophet, you just had to wait. Accumulate when everyone else flees, wait for the halving, let scarcity do its work, and the reward will come. Pain too, but always followed by renewal.
Except that what's happening today has nothing to do with the early cycles. Because it's no longer just geeks, cypherpunks, and a few isolated traders who are making the market. It's institutional behemoths. Michael Saylor, for example, who is buying thousands of BTC with no intention of selling tomorrow. Metaplanet in Japan, which has made it a corporate strategy. American ETFs, which are channeling the savings of entire pension funds into the protocol. The banks themselves, which now offer custody services. The game has changed.
And this is where the conundrum arises: will these new players reproduce the old bull/bear pattern, or will they break it?
One can imagine a first scenario: nothing changes. The halving remains the clockwork. Institutional investors, despite their power, cannot counter the laws of supply and demand. Rewards diminish, scarcity increases, prices rise, euphoria sets in, and then comes the collapse when everyone takes their profits. The cycles continue, perhaps with slightly different amplitudes, but the music remains the same.
A second scenario is more subtle: cycles are stretching. Institutions, by accumulating massively without selling, create more constant buying pressure. As a result, bull markets last longer, perhaps less explosive, but more sustained. Bear markets, on the other hand, are less violent, because these players are not selling off their positions at -80%. We are then entering a logic where Bitcoin is still rising, but in less abrupt waves. It is no longer the panting breath of youth; it is a more adult, more disciplined growth.
Finally, there is the third scenario: a complete breakdown. Bitcoin ceases to be governed by its internal cycles and becomes primarily a macroeconomic asset. Its price reacts more to Fed interest rates, global liquidity, and geopolitics than to the division of rewards. The halving becomes almost folklore, a symbolic ritual, but with no real impact on the price. In this world, Bitcoin is no longer an autonomous phenomenon: it is fully integrated into the system.
So, where are we really? It's hard to say. What is certain is that the presence of institutions is changing collective psychology. Before, everyone had the cycle chart in mind. Today, more and more players are thinking long-term, 10 or 20 years. They're not trying to time the market, but to build up reserves. Yet, individuals continue to live with the memory of old cycles. They watch for the same signals, they wait for the same booms, they fear the same crashes. In other words, cyclicality has become as much cultural as mathematical.
This is the beauty of the paradox. Even though institutions change the game, even though global liquidity becomes the key factor, millions of investors continue to act as if the cycle were a prophecy. They buy when the halving comes, they sell when everyone is screaming that the top has been reached. And their collective behavior recreates the cycle, even though, in theory, it could disappear.
So, does Bitcoin still respect its cycles? For now, yes. The logic remains visible, even if it's increasingly blurred. But will this still be the case in ten years? That's less certain. Perhaps we're living through the last major cycle, the one that will mark the tipping point. Or perhaps Bitcoin, true to its irony, will play us the same coin again, with the same twists and turns, just to remind us that despite all the theories, it remains the master of the game.
And that's probably the real lesson: Bitcoin isn't a clock, it's a mirror. It reflects the mathematical scarcity it embodies, but also the obsessions, beliefs, and fears of those who participate in it. The halving isn't just a technical mechanism; it's a story told and repeated, one that influences as much as it describes. As long as there are people who believe in cycles, as long as there are weak hands to panic and strong hands to accumulate, the cycle will be reborn. And when that belief disappears, then Bitcoin will surprise us again, inventing another logic, perhaps more brutal, perhaps gentler. But never predictable.
Because, deep down, Bitcoin isn't designed to respect our patterns. It's designed to break them.
👉 Also read: