Did Crypto Investors Stop Believing In The Four-Year Cycle? Analyst Weighs In

With only two weeks left of 2025, market participants wonder whether the Bitcoin (BTC) and the rest of the crypto market will continue to struggle or begin recovering. An analyst discussed the current market sentiment and the impact it may have on market performance.

As we approach the end of the year, concerns about the crypto market’s performance continue to mount. Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, has seen a 30% decline from its early October peak.

As the volatility persist and the flagship crypto trades below its yearly opening price of $93,500, some investors questioned the four-year cycle theory, suggesting that the theory may no longer hold after the recent market’s performance.

Responding to one of these comments, pseudonym market observer Plur affirmed that the four-year crypto cycle has evolved over the years and that “there is no magical rule of nature stating price must go up and down on this fixed cadence.”

The analyst explained that the theory is a “memetic consensus, which is a form of implicit agreement and coordination that people will buy and sell together at set times, and by doing so, force outsiders to participate and bring their money.”

“It’s an egregore-as-cartel. It’s a large group of loosely connected people all saying, every 4 years, we are going to hike up and down this mountain at the same time,” he detailed on the Wednesday post.

Another community member added that the crypto cycle “is like faith in God: everyone believes in it, but no one has ever seen it.” Plur added that the initial catalyst and “original metronome” of this theory was the halving but that it has become “something more than that.”

The evolution of the four-year crypto cycle has led some market participants to try to shift their behavior to “front run the moves of others” to benefit more.” As a result, many investors started to sell aggressively in 2025 anticipating of the end of the cycle.

To the market watcher, this “represents a fraying in the memetic consensus, and eventually it collapses, as belief decays.” Similarly, Ark Invest’s CEO, Cathie Wood, recently affirmed that Bitcoin is currently “climbing another wall of worry” that has made investors cautious of the upcoming market performance.

She explained that there is fear of the four-year cycle, which suggests that 2026 will be a corrective year. Plur noted that the crypto market is in an uncertain state, where some investors continue to believe in the theory and some don’t.

“The biggest impact that might have is not giving people enough confidence to buy on the upswing. Remember how assured you felt buying in 2023? Now the troops are scattered because the coordination mechanism is gone,” he stated.

Plur added that “in equities the memetic consensus is that the index will always grind up over time, buy the dip, trust the process. (…) I had been hopeful that something similar could come in for BTC to replace the 4 year cycle, but sell pressure was way too high,” leading to the indeterminate state of the market. He concluded that it’s time to wait and see if a new form of memetic consensus can form.