Let’s be honest.
Let’s be honest. This bull run feels a little weird.
Weird. It is weird. Crypto is supposed to waltz to a neat 4-year
rhythm. Having hype blowoff blues. Instead, we have spot ETFs and corporate entities vacuuming
up supply ahead of retail investors. memecoins mooning B4 blue chips and the world’s largest
economy forming a strategic Bitcoin reserve. And this all makes it more difficult to figure
out where exactly we are in this market cycle. And that’s why in this video, we’ll unpack the
classic cycle, examine why this round looks a bit different, reveal who stands to win, and yes,
we’ll discuss whether the usual 4-year rhythm just flatlined. My name is Nick and this is a video
you cannot afford to miss. Before we start, a quick heads up. I’m not a financial adviser and
this isn’t financial advice. We are just sharing information for education and entertainment. So,
always dy before investing. Now, to kick things off, it’s worth doing a quick refresher of the
concept of the classic 4-year cycle. So, Bitcoin’s heartbeat is the haring, a hard-coded supply
cut that fires once every 210,000 blocks. The four events so far in 2012, 16, 20, and 2024 have
each sliced BTC issuance by half and in doing so throttled the steady stream of coins coming to the
open market. Supply shrinks overnight while demand gradually rises in tandem. As many analysts and
investors believe, the imbalance is the spark that ignites the major leg up in the typical cycle.
Reduced sell pressure from new supply lets price drift upward and the sky is the limit. The theory
states that as the market realizes a new scarcity regime is in force, a reflexive reaction occurs. A
rising chart pulls in headlines. Headlines pull in fresh capital and the circular feedback loop sends
prices upwards at an increasing rate. Historical performance underscores the potency. From hing
to cycle peak following each of the first three hings, Bitcoin rallied roughly 95 times, 30 times,
and eight times respectively. An eyewatering average that cementss the number go up legend.
During this stretch, crowd euphoria inflates valuation metrics such as the MVRV zed score.
And this is an onchain metric used to identify whether BTC is over or undervalued relative to
its fair value. A reading above 7 has accompanied every major top to date. Though in mid 2025, the
gauge is still well below that danger zone. But typically, momentum outruns fundamentals, ushering
in the short, spectacular climax of a blowoff top. Minor profitability spikes. Long-term holders
transfer billions in dormant coins to exchanges, and leverage ratios reach cartoonish levels just
before liquidity evaporates. When bids disappear, price collapses in a matter of weeks, marking
the cycle’s zenith. The hangover of the classic four-year cycle is something which dare I say
every one of us is familiar. Draw downs of 70 to 90% across the board which purge excesses. Hash
rate then stalls and skeptics resurface to declare Bitcoin dead for the eenth time. Onchain realized
capitalization compresses as capitulation ensues. Offchain this has often coincided with monetary
conditions tightening amplifying the pain. The market then grinds sideways until we begin to
approach the next haring when a rally begins in anticipation of the cadence restarting.
Four interlocking forces issuance maths, minor economics, reflexive psychology, and macro
liquidity have all kept this metronome regular for more than a decade. Yet, as we hinted at in the
introduction, this cycle seems to be departing slightly from that script. Before we discuss
how and why that is, give this video a like the first and most obvious departure from the
prior bull run is the source of Bitcoin demand. In the past, retail traders and a smattering of
cryptonative funds drove the upside. This time, two deep pocketed buyer classes are hoovering
up almost all of the coins on autopilot. US spot bitcoin ETFs launched around 18 months
ago already custody around $135 billion in BTC. And what’s more, according to a joint
report from Glass Node and Avenia Group, the bulk of those positions are unhedged long only
mandates rather than fast money swing trades. To put this into context a bit, the largest spot
Bitcoin ETF, the Black Rockck EyesShares Bitcoin Trust, currently holds about 692,000 BTC, and
that’s equal to around 3.3% of the 21 million Bitcoin that will ever be in existence. Right
behind the ETFs come the corporate treasuries. crypto’s favorite technology firm, Strategy,
has become a Bitcoin vacuum cleaner with its current stash sitting at 592,345 BTC or around
$64 billion at the time of making this video. And chances are it’ll be higher by the time you watch
it. And you may have noticed that strategy kicked off a bit of a trend with many more companies
following the Bitcoin Treasury approach. In total, 126 publicly traded companies now control just
under 4% of the Bitcoin supply, worth around $89 billion. And that makes Treasury Desks the
second largest structural sync after the ETFs, a role miners once used to play in reverse by
adding supply. And this relentless cold storage migration has coincided with an environment
that paradoxically feels a bit sedated. Realized volatility on 3-month window is sitting below
50%. Remarkably low for a bull market and far beneath the 80 to 100% prints we saw in 2017
and 2021. Glass node attributes this calm to a heavier institutional mix and to longer holding
periods that dampen reflexive whiplash. Even short news-driven sell-offs have struggled to push
BTC outside of the 100 to 110k band of late. While Bitcoin supply tightens at the top, activity
is exploding further down the crypto ecosystem. Ethereum layer 2 rollups such as base now
consistently process around 11 times more transactions per second than Ethereum itself.
Improved UX, modular data availability layers, account abstraction wallets, and near zero fee
bridges mean newcomers can interact without even touching L1 gas prices at all. A dynamic
that simply does not exist in earlier cycles. The retail zeitgeist has also shifted. In prior
cycles, once Bitcoin topped, leading altcoins had their big rally, which would then be followed by
altcoin mania as crypto traders ventured further out along the crypto risk curve to projects
that had little or nothing to do with crypto utility. In 2024 to 2025, however, memecoins
front ran altcoin majors on Salana. 54% of May’s DEX volume came from memecoin pairs. Back in
February, this figure reached over 70%, something historically unprecedented. This inversion, high
beta froth preceding any major blue chip momentum, suggests the speculative end of the market is
behaving much differently this time around. Whatever the reason behind it, one can’t deny that
memecoin mania has been a core feature of the last year or so. And finally, the policy backdrop looks
less binary than the harsh crackdown following 2021. The United States has just cleared a federal
stable coin bill through the Senate, a landmark that moves us closer to the regulated path
for dollarbacked tokens. A pro- crypto SEC has meanwhile been dropping crypto cases left, right,
and center. It appears most crypto operations in the US have a clear green light in comparison to
the previous cycles that were marked by constant state of existential dread. Combined with pro-
crypto overtures from the Trump administration and Micah’s roll out in Europe, regulation is
becoming a clear map of green and red lights certainly leaning in favor of the industry overall
rather than the onoff switch that had the industry constantly second-guessing its fate in the past.
Put together, 2025’s weirdness is structural. Supply is trapped in ETF vaults and corporate
treasuries. Trading activity has migrated to cheaper rails. Retail speculation has reorganized
around memes and volatility is oddly tame, and the rule book is being rewritten in real time. The old
4-year step wall still echoes in the background, but the dancers have changed. The tempo is slower
and the floor itself has expanded. Thankfully, But how did this all come about right now? Why
has this institutional wall of money appeared now? Well, of course, the institutional bull run began
when talk of the spot Bitcoin ETFs got serious in the first half of 2023. Despite rejections of
the past, it quickly became clear that the big boys wanted a piece of the crypto action this time
around, and spot ETFs were to be the main gateway. Prices soared as odds of ETF approval kept rising.
And sure enough, spot Bitcoin ETFs were approved and subsequently launched in January 2024. Keep
in mind the timing of this rally was still pretty consistent with the traditional 4-year cycle. The
bids flooded in for the spot ETFs and BTC’s price soared 70% higher in the weeks following their
launch, ultimately forming a local top in March of that year. In September 2024, Bitcoin saw
the beginning of its second major leg higher this cycle when US monetary policy loosened its
grip and the Federal Reserve delivered the first of what would become three consecutive rate cuts.
Grayscale’s monthly commentary noted that the very week of that initial cut, the Footsie Grayscale
crypto sectors index logged its largest return since March, a signaling that cheaper dollars were
already pushing out along the risk curve. When the Fed formally slowed quantitive tightening
in March 2025, trimming Treasury rolloffs to $5 billion a month, investors and traders
interpreted the gesture as a green light for still more risk. And of course, these liquidity
tailwinds met a political tailwind when President Donald Trump won the presidential election a
few months prior. Markets, particularly crypto, saw a massive leg up following confirmation of the
crypto president’s victory in November last year, ultimately leading to a new all-time high. Trump
then went on to sign an executive order revoking several Biden era enforcement priorities and
set up the presidential working group on digital assets. For the first time, US agencies were told
to nurture rather than neuter crypto innovation. Two months later, the administration crossed a
symbolic Rubicon. An executive order issued in March this year created a strategic Bitcoin
reserve inside the treasury and required all forfeited BTC to be transferred there and
quote not sold. Estimates put the initial trove at about 104,000 BTC as analysts do expect
the return of 94,000 BTC to Bitfinex. Either way, this instantly removes another chunk of float
from circulation and signals to the world that Washington now treats Bitcoin like digital gold.
Congress is now on the verge of supplying the final piece of the puzzle through the Genius Act.
The bill’s one-toone reserve mandate would give stable coin issuers a clear federal charter and
just as importantly tell traditional banks exactly how to participate. Put together spot bitcoin
ETFs, corporate Bitcoin treasuries, some ease in monetary policy, a deregulatory blitz from the
White House, and the creation of a US sovereign Bitcoin horde have stretched the market’s usual
hovering tempo into something broader. More than that, all of these factors have made this cycle
much more Bitcoin ccentric. While there have been opportunities for big runners in the altcoin space
while Bitcoin rallied into six figure territory, the altcoin market looks very different from 2017
or 2021. As we noted earlier, memecoins are now a core feature of altcoin trading. Memecoins
have consistently accounted for a majority of all Salana DEX volume since Q2 2024. An inversion
of past cycles where the major speculative froth typically arrived only after Bitcoin peaked.
If we are indeed in a Bitcoin ccentric cycle driven by institutions while altcoins generally
lag behind. You may be wondering where is retail in all of this. As it so happens we actually
covered this in a separate video which you can watch right over here. Now, you don’t need us to
tell you that alcoins are moving much differently than they did in previous cycles. However, this
then begs the question, has the typical 4-year cycle flatlined? Ever since Bitcoin’s first hing
in 2012, investors have treated the 4-year cadence as gospel? Supply shock, reflexive meltup, crash,
and then recovery. Yet the evidence piling up in 2024 to 2025 is awkward for that tidy script.
Volatility is crushed. Drawd downs for Bitcoin are shallow but oddly prolonged. And price
has spent months meandering around without a clear expansion to one direction or the other.
Elsewhere in the crypto market, altcoins are also failing to showcase the typical explosive
moves we are used to. Instead, it seems we are continually faced with the odd spike here and
there, followed by a slow bleed as prices can’t manage several big legs up. Bitcoin’s corrections
this cycle have maxed out at minus 30% rather than the routine 50 to 70% draw downs seen in previous
cycles. This is enough to shake out weak hands, but far too gentle to reset valuations in a single
waterfall. So, what’s changed? Well, the cycle’s once violent market movements have been muffled by
dollar cost averaging leviathans. US spot bitcoin ETF issuers continue to soak up BTC seemingly
oblivious to price spikes. Corporate treasuries such as strategy add predictable bids and the
US Treasury itself will lock away an estimated 104,000 BTC. This all smoothens out volatility in
the market. In fact, as a result of these factors, Bitwise CIO Matt Hogan argues that macro
catalysts, not blockreward math supply shocks, now set the tempo, and that quote, “The traditional
4-year cycle is over.” In crypto miners, once the involuntary sellers who punctuated every
cycle, are also less binary. With sophisticated hedging desks at firms, they are pre-elling hash
rates months ahead via forward markets, turning the haring from a cliff into a manageable step
down. Glass nodes research shows minor balances shrinking only marginally since April’s reward
cut. A far cry from the capitulation waves that followed earlier hings. Even the market’s riskier
corners are divorcing themselves from the cycle. Memecoin Mania suggests that retail speculation
is now driven less by tech or Bitcoin dominance and more by low friction wallets, social media
virality, or just some good old-fashioned cabals looking into Schiller token they launched in 2
seconds through a memecoin launchpad. Of course, none of this proves that the drum beat is dead,
only that its rhythm is changing. ETFs cannot absorb coins forever. Miners still face rise in
energy costs and reflexive price action can still ignite when the necessary conditions do induce
it. Yet, if the cycle once mimicked a consistent uh metronome, maybe it now resembles jazz,
familiar motifs, but unexpected pauses and crescendos that arrive on their own schedule.
Crypto investors who cling to the old sheet music risk missing the tune altogether. Four-year cycle
or not, Bitcoin is stealing the show, the cycle, and cementing itself as the institutionally
accepted crypto asset. But then, how should we approach the altcoin market in an institutionally
driven cycle? We are not under any illusions here. We believe that there will continue to be a
memecoin season in the future. The temptation of trying to catch a 100x runner will not leave
the mind of retail crypto traders. However, in the context of an institutionally driven cycle, other
sectors do stand to benefit. With this backdrop, one altcoin sector in particular stands out.
Realworld assets or RWA asset tokenization has sprinted from proof of concept to headline
act. Public blockchains now host roughly $ 24 billion in tokenized treasuries, credit, and
commodities, double what it was last year. And the curve is still climbing. Black Rockck’s Biddle
Fund alone commands $2.9 billion and can now be posted as collateral on major crypto venues.
Proof that Wall Street’s rails and DeFi’s pipes are finally meshing. In parallel, stable coin
issuers already need over $200 billion in T- bills to back their tokens. So any further increase in
stable coin supply translates into nearly the same amount of treasury demand. Hard data also backs
this narrative. Coin Gekcko calculates that the tokenized treasury sector has grown 545% since the
start of 2024, outpacing every other RWA vertical. Projects that pipe real yield from sovereign debt,
money market funds, or revenue sharing real estate into token form. Therefore, look primed to absorb
the bulk of institutional capital that may venture out along the crypto risk curve away from Bitcoin.
Yet, yield alone won’t be enough. If crypto has truly arrived as an asset class, projects should
also show real product usage and some profitable cash flows. DeFi blue chip A clears that bar,
hauling in $85 million in annualized protocol revenue and charging nearly $600 million in
annualized fees across its money markets. Those numbers give allocators something meatier than
potential TVL to underwrite, and they illustrate why seasoned investors increasingly demand audited
revenues, not just tokconomic PDFs. The snag here, however, is saturation. Crypto now has many
millions of tokens, while heavy unlock schedules and fragmented liquidity keep raising the hurdle
for newcomers. Many analysts believe that capital is clustering around selective winners with
authentic product market fit and active users while narrative only coins face a swift culling.
With that in mind, in a world of infinite tickers, missing the right horse because you ventured
too far out the risk curve becomes an ever larger danger. That is why most investors choose
to keep BTC as their portfolio’s anchor. bids from institutional investors, corporate treasuries, and
even potentially a bid adding to the US strategic reserve all focus on Bitcoin. Altcoins can offer
greater returns than Bitcoin, but you better have a good reason to opt for something that doesn’t
have that structural bid. Now, while we have all established that this time around looks a
little bit different to the typical 4-year cycle, we refrain from stating those dangerous
words that uh this time is different. So, if we are in the final innings of a 4-year cycle
before a bare market unfolds, a Bitcoin top is expected sometime between Q3 this year and Q1
2026. But how high might we go for that cycle top? At the time of making this video, total crypto
market cap sits at $3.2 trillion with Bitcoin commanding roughly 65% of that value and stable
coins a further 8%. Whether the coming months can add another couple of trillion or several hinges
on the same forces that have sent Bitcoin into six figure territory. A consistent institutional
investor base, a White House bent on deregulation, and generally softer monetary policy. If stable
coin demand continues to grow while these factors maintain their positive push on crypto prices, the
total crypto market cap could reach $5 trillion and beyond. Still an expansion of 55% from here.
And this would be roughly in line with analysts at JP Morgan who see Bitcoin reaching $150,000 this
year. However, there are certainly more bullish analysts out there, such as Standard Charted,
who think that Bitcoin will reach $200,000, a near 100% increase from current prices. Whichever
branch the market takes, one warning endures. Attempting to time the top perfectly is seductive
and winds up being costly more often than not. Keeping the 4-year cycle in mind can be
helpful, but it is important to note that the game has indeed changed. Having Bitcoin as a
portfolio’s anchor seems to remain the core tenant of navigating these ever evolving crypto markets,
even more so in this Bitcoin ccentric cycle. So, letting a few promising altcoins ride shotgun
and treating everything else further out along the risk curve as a lottery ticket remains a
reliable way to enjoy the view. if the market does indeed climb toward $5 trillion and beyond
and to survive if it stalls out before then. Now,
