Bitwise CEO says Bitcoin’s 4-cycle will break – ‘2026 is open season’

Key Takeaways

What can break the BTC cycle? 

New dynamics from ETFs and treasury buyers that analysts believe have matured the BTC market away from its typical cycle structure. 

What’s next if the cycle is broken? 

Then, BTC’s momentum in 2026 could depend on the U.S. business cycle and liquidity growth. 

How did Bitcoin [BTC] top out and enter a bear phase without triggering historical warning signals? 

That’s the question most market watchers are struggling with across Crypto Twitter (CT) after BTC fell below key bull market support (the 365-day Daily Moving Average) amid an extended correction. 

But the set warning signals relied on the 4-year BTC cycle. 

What if the cycle is broken or changing from historical patterns? In fact, Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley and FundStrat CIO Tom Lee are now convinced that players following the past trends will break the cycle. 

Horsley noted that people sold in 2025 to avoid the expected 2026 dump, based on past patterns. 

Unfortunately, this could drag 2025 into the red, a historically green post-halving year, effectively breaking the cycle and potentially leaving 2026 “open” for a new regime. 

“Second-order effect: the 2025 sellers cause 2025 to be a down year, thus breaking the 4-year cycles. Third-order effect: 2026 is open season. 4-year cycles broken.”

Source: Bitwise

Lee echoed the outlook and added, 

“Cogent points, I agree that factors shifting away from 4-year cycle for BTC, ETH.”

What’s really driving BTC cycles?

For the unfamiliar, the entire cycle theory has been centered on BTC’s halving event, which occurs about every four years.

Measured from the cycle low, the 2022 phase (black line) has yielded a +600% gain, way less than other cycles. But it had a relatively close correlation, especially to the second (blue) and third (green) cycles. 

Source: Glassnode

With new players, such as ETFs and treasuries, entering the market, the maturing sector was expected to experience the law of diminishing returns. 

And with the changes, some have claimed that typical cycle indicators like MVRV Z-Score wouldn’t effectively pick out tops anymore. 

Source: Glassnode

In the past cycles, MVRV Z-Score spikes marked market tops. Such a move hasn’t been triggered and would make the current cycle unique if indeed $126k was the market peak. 

Another user, Satoshi Flipper, echoed Lee and Horsley’s outlook, but added that the changes are due to extended U.S. business cycles.

Put differently, the BTC cycle is tied closely to liquidity growth than halving seasons, as previously believed. 

Source: X

Perhaps the end-of-year results and the 2026 performance will prove which theory is correct about BTC and whether the 4-year cycle is indeed dead.