Forget everything you thought you knew about the Bitcoin 4-year cycle as Grayscale just dropped a major research piece saying we’re in uncharted territory, and this famous cycle might be broken.
Grayscale’s analysts are now forecasting fresh Bitcoin all-time highs as soon as 2026, and they’re straight-up telling investors to stop obsessing over the classic 4-year cycle that’s ruled the market since 2012.
Why does Grayscale believe that Bitcoin 4-Year Cycle will be broken soon?
For over a decade, Bitcoin has moved like clockwork: halving → 12–18 months of euphoria → new peak → brutal bear market → repeat every four years. That 4-year cycle became gospel.
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Traders lived and died by it. But according to Grayscale, this time the rules have changed.
Their argument boils down to one massive shift: Bitcoin isn’t just a speculative toy for crypto natives anymore. Spot ETFs have sucked in hundreds of billions from traditional finance, nation-states like El Salvador are stacking and corporations are treating BTC like a legitimate treasury reserve asset.
These new buyers don’t care about the halving calendar, and they’re here for the long game.
Add the fact that the 2024 halving has already happened and we’re still waiting for the “real” bull run to kick into overdrive, and suddenly the traditional 4-year cycle timing feels off by months, if not completely broken.
Grayscale’s team even ran the numbers and concluded that if you can’t just slap the old 4-year cycle template on this market and expect it to fit, institutional inflows, macro liquidity conditions, and global adoption are now bigger drivers than the halving alone.
They see Bitcoin grinding higher through 2025 and printing a new record top sometime in 2026, potentially without the violent blow-off top and 85% crash that always followed in previous cycles.
Whether they’re right or not, one thing is clear: the 4-year cycle religion is officially being questioned by one of the biggest players in the room. And when Grayscale starts talking like this, people listen.
