The Bitcoin Four-Year Cycle: Myth or Pattern?

Does the bitcoin four-year cycle really exist? In its timing, yes: after all four halvings, a high came 12 to 18 months later, then a crash, and a good year after that the bottom. But the swings shrink from cycle to cycle. The October 2025 high was only 1.5 times the long-term trend. The cycle is not a law.

A calendar everyone trades by

In autumn 2025 you could read it in every bitcoin forum: "The high comes 18 months after the halving, then a year of bear market." On October 6, 2025, bitcoin closed at $124’673, 534 days after the halving. Nine months later it was $58’628. The calendar was right again.

Still, the question that matters to you as a long-term holder remains: is the bitcoin four-year cycle a real pattern you can align your purchases and sales with? Or a myth that only holds because enough people believe in it? This article tests it with daily closing prices since 2010.

What is the bitcoin four-year cycle?

The cycle describes a sequence that has repeated since 2012. It is tied to the bitcoin halving: every 210’000 blocks, roughly every four years, the amount of new bitcoin is cut in half.

1. Halving: The number of new bitcoin per block drops by half. The price is usually still below the all-time high.
2. Upswing: In the months that follow, the price rises, breaks the old high and accelerates.
3. High: 12 to 18 months after the halving, the price reaches its peak, often in a phase of euphoria.
4. Bear market: Within about a year, the price falls by more than half down to the low.
5. Recovery: Until the next halving, the price slowly rises again, and everything starts over.

The numbers show whether this sequence is chance or has a cause.

All bitcoin cycles compared

This is where halving, high and low fell in the four cycles so far. "× trend" means the multiple of the Power Law trend on that day, that is how expensive bitcoin was measured against its whole history.

Daily closing prices in US dollars: Coin Metrics until Jan 10, 2018, OKX after that. The 2026 low is the lowest up to Nov 13, 2026; it may still be undercut.

Three things stand out:

• The rhythm is remarkably stable. Since 2016, the high came 525 to 546 days after the halving every time. From high to high, 1’473, 1’423 and 1’428 days passed; from low to low, 1’431, 1’437 and so far 1’317.
• The height is shrinking. Each high was closer to the trend than the one before: 10.9 ×, 6.3 ×, 2.8 ×, 1.5 ×.
• The lows stay stable. They were always between 0.45 and 0.59 times the trend, close to the Power Law floor.

The cycle on the calendar: year by year

The pattern becomes even clearer when you sort the calendar years by their position in the cycle. The figures show the change from the last daily close of the previous year to the last one of the year.

The pattern of "two good years, one bad, one recovery year" repeated cleanly three times. In the 2024 cycle it is weaker: 2025 brought the high but closed in the red. That had never happened in a year after a halving.

Why does the cycle exist? Four explanations

No one can prove why the cycle arose. Four explanations are seriously discussed, and they probably all work together.

1. The halving shrinks new supply

Miners sell a large part of their new bitcoin to pay for electricity and equipment. After the halving, only half as much reaches the market. With the same demand, the price has to rise.

But this effect is getting smaller. In 2012, an inflow of about 25% of the supply per year was halved; in 2024, one of about 1.7%. Today the bitcoin supply grows by about 0.8% a year, from 2028 by about 0.4%. How much new supply that is in euros is worked out in the article on the halving.

2. Money and interest rates

The highs often fell in times of cheap money. In 2021, US policy rates were close to zero and the money supply grew faster than ever. In 2022, the US Federal Reserve raised its policy rate to over 4% within a year, and bitcoin fell 64%. How closely bitcoin is tied to the money supply is shown in Money supply M2 and the bitcoin price. In short: the direction often fits, the strength doesn't.

3. Everyone knows the calendar

The better known the cycle, the more investors follow it. They buy before the halving, sell 18 months after it and wait a year for the bottom. That can create the cycle itself, but also bring it forward: if you want to sell before everyone else, you sell earlier. How such waves of greed and fear arise is described in FOMO, panic and capitulation.

4. Credit amplifies every move

In every upswing, more people buy on credit. When the price turns, their positions are force-sold, which pushes the price down further. A bear market often only ends once this credit has been unwound. On top of that came bankruptcies in every cycle: Mt. Gox in 2014, FTX in November 2022, a few days before the low.

Is the four-year cycle dead? The 2024 to 2026 cycle

Since January 2024, bitcoin ETFs in the US and treasury companies such as Strategy have been buying large amounts of bitcoin. Many therefore expected the cycle to end: long-term big investors, the idea went, would smooth out the swings. What happened?

• The old high fell before the halving. On Mar 4, 2024, bitcoin closed above the 2021 high, seven weeks before the halving. In the three cycles before, the new high only came 3 to 8 months after the halving.
• The high came on time. 534 days after the halving, right in the window of the 2016 and 2020 cycles.
• The high was small. It was only 54% above the trend, a good tenth below the top band. In 2017 it was 525%, in 2021 still 175%.
• The crash came anyway. By Jun 30, 2026, the price had fallen 53%, down to the floor. On Nov 13, 2026, it stood at $69’219 (€62’507, CHF 57’706).

So the honest answer is: the rhythm survived, the swings did not.

The chart shows all cycles at a glance. The highs touch the top band, the lows the floor, and both lines converge:

Myth or pattern? The verdict

The bitcoin four-year cycle is a pattern in timing, not a law of nature. It rests on four examples, and the reasons behind it are changing. If you act on the calendar alone, you are betting that four cases repeat a fifth time.

If the pattern holds: the next cycle

The next halving comes at block 1’050’000, probably between March 22 and April 12, 2028. Applying the intervals of the last three cycles gives this calendar. The values for trend, top band and floor come from the Power Law, converted at the ECB rates of Nov 12, 2026 (€1 = $1.1081 = CHF 0.9232).

Why the high sits at the top band: the top band, the line through the cycle highs so far, comes down toward the floor every year and stays above the trend. On Oct 1, 2029, it is about twice the floor and 41% above the trend of $221’000. If that continues, the model expects the next cycle high about that far above the trend. This is a model calculation, not a forecast. Today bitcoin is at 0.64 times the trend. Where trend and floor will be in 2030, 2035 and 2040 is shown in the Bitcoin forecast based on the Power Law.

Worked example: the calendar rule

Suppose you had stubbornly traded by the calendar: sell everything 540 days after the halving, buy back exactly a year later. We leave out fees and taxes.

Then there are taxes. In Germany, gains on bitcoin you have held for more than a year are tax-free. For bitcoin bought back, the one-year period starts again. In Switzerland, price gains on private assets are usually tax-free, but frequent trading can count as professional. More in Bitcoin taxes in Germany.

Whether a partial sale near the top band and a buyback at the floor would gain you anything is worked out with your numbers by the cycle calculator:

What the cycle means for your plan

1. Use the distance from the trend instead of the calendar. The cycle tells you when a high came historically, but not how high. The Power Law shows you every day whether bitcoin is cheap or expensive. You can see where things stand on the Power Law page.
2. Expect bear markets. Even if the crashes are getting smaller, every cycle so far has brought a drop of more than 50%. Only hold so much that you won't have to sell in such a phase. The depth, duration and recovery of every bear market are in All bitcoin bear markets compared.
3. Keep saving, whatever the phase. A fixed savings plan automatically buys more bitcoin for the same money in a bear market. Work it out in the savings plan calculator.
4. Set your selling rules in advance. If you want to take profits, tie that to valuation and your goal, not to a date. How to do that is shown in Taking bitcoin profits: partial sales by rules.
5. Expect the cycle to weaken. If the highs are closer to the trend, the gain from selling and buying back also gets smaller. The bitcoin cycle loses value as a tool the larger and more mature the market becomes.