Bitcoin's Four-Year Cycle in 2026: Is It Still Working?
Every prior Bitcoin bear market bottomed about a year after its cycle top. This page collects the letter's work on whether 2026 is rhyming with that history or breaking it.
Bitcoin's four-year cycle is the idea that price moves in a repeating rhythm around the halving: a run to a new all-time high, a deep bear market, a bottom roughly a year after the top, then recovery. It is the most shared chart in crypto, and it rests on a very small sample.
The three mature cycles the letter measures against are 2013 to 2015 (about 410 days from top to low, roughly −85%), 2017 to 2018 (about 363 days, roughly −83%) and 2021 to 2022 (about 376 days, roughly −77%). This cycle topped near $126,000 on 6 October 2025. The 2026 low so far is about $57,700 on 1 July, only around 268 days after the top and about −54% deep. That is early and shallow against every prior cycle.
The letter's working view is that the four-year playbook is a weak prior, not a law. Three observations cannot make a statistical rule, and spot ETFs, larger institutional plumbing and a different rate regime can either compress the cycle or amplify a late drawdown. The desk keeps two models side by side: Model A, where $58k was the bottom and the cycle is compressing, and Model B, where the final 2026 low is still ahead in the October to November window. Neither is treated as an appointment.
What would decide it is sequence, not the calendar: whether support levels fail one after another with rising forced selling, or hold while ETF demand persists.
