Disclaimer: This is not financial advice. Anything stated in this article is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. Triton may maintain positions in any of the assets or projects discussed on this website.
TL;DR
Why the Four-Year Cycle Is Over
For more than a decade, crypto markets have been framed through the lens of a recurring four-year cycle: a sharp bull market followed by a violent drawdown, often coinciding with Bitcoin halvings, macro tightening, or systemic blow-ups. This framework has become deeply embedded in investor psychology, shaping positioning, risk management, and capital allocation decisions.
However, cycles are not immutable laws of nature. They are emergent outcomes of specific market structures. And today, the structural conditions that once produced the four-year cycle no longer exist.
We believe the four-year cycle is dead. That said, traders, who often control price action, especially during low liquidity environments, can create self-fulfilling, short term downside if they believe the cyclical nature is still intact. As such, there can be short term downside as selling overpowers buy pressure. We believe we are living through this currently, but that it will be short lived.
The Origins of the Four-Year Cycle
Historically, there were four primary explanations for the recurring boom-and-bust pattern in crypto markets:
For much of crypto’s history, these forces aligned. Today, they do not.
Why the Old Drivers No Longer Apply
The Halving Is No Longer a Dominant Variable
The Bitcoin halving has diminishing marginal impact. Each halving removes a smaller absolute quantity of supply, while overall market depth, institutional participation, and derivatives liquidity have grown exponentially. What was once a supply shock is now a rounding error in a global capital market.
The halving narrative persists because it worked before - not because it still governs price formation.
Rates Are Falling, Not Rising
Unlike prior cycle downturns, the current macro backdrop is defined by easing financial conditions, not tightening. This alone breaks one of the most consistent historical correlates of crypto drawdowns.
Crypto has historically struggled when rates rise. That regime is ending, not beginning.
Forced Liquidations Have Moved Off-Chain
A critical misconception in today’s market is that the absence of old-wallet selling disproves distribution. In reality, much of the supply transfer from early holders to institutions is occurring synthetically. Large, long-term Bitcoin holders increasingly monetize positions via covered call strategies, writing upside exposure in exchange for yield rather than selling spot and realizing taxes. This introduces effective supply without visible on-chain movement. These strategies barely existed two years ago; today, they represent billions of dollars in notional exposure. This marks a structural evolution in market mechanics - one that smooths volatility rather than amplifying it.
Blow-Up Risk Is Materially Lower
Systemic failure risk has not disappeared, but it has migrated. Custody is institutional. Leverage is more transparent. Counterparty risk is increasingly regulated. While pockets of excess remain, the probability of an FTX-scale unwind resetting the entire market is meaningfully lower.
The reflexive “reset event” that once defined the down year of the cycle is no longer structurally embedded.
The Rise of a Stronger Force: Institutional Adoption
Against the weakening forces of the four-year cycle stands a far more powerful, longer-duration trend: institutional integration.
In the past six months alone:
This represents approximately $15 trillion of newly addressable capital.
This is not speculative retail flow. It is structurally patient, policy-driven capital operating under multi-year mandates. These allocators do not trade four-year cycles. They build exposure, rebalance, hedge, and compound.
This marks crypto’s transition from a reflexive, retail-dominated asset class into a regulated, institutionally intermediated market - more analogous to emerging equities than to speculative commodities.
From Cycles to Regimes
The four-year cycle was never a clock. It was a pattern produced by fragile market structure, thin liquidity, and repeated systemic failures.
Those conditions are gone.
In their place, crypto is entering a regime-based market, where returns are driven by:
These are ten-year forces, not four-year ones.
Conclusion
The belief that crypto must collapse in 2026 because it did so in 2018 and 2022 is a failure of structural analysis. History rhymes only when underlying conditions persist.
They do not.
The four-year cycle is not “broken.” It has been superseded. What lies ahead is not a predictable boom-bust cadence, but a more durable, institutionally anchored market - volatile, yes, but no longer governed by an obsolete narrative.
In short: the cycle is dead. The regime has changed.
Crypto is moving beyond the four-year cycle as institutional adoption, easing macro conditions, and structural market changes redefine how returns are formed.
TritonLLM brings together Triton’s research library, on-chain data, and AI workflow to accelerate analysis, surface opportunities, and build a more adaptive, resilient investment process in today’s evolving crypto market.
Market sentiment, liquidity, and positioning have reset while fundamentals remain strong, creating a rare asymmetric entry point as macro headwinds ease and institutions quietly accumulate.