Current Bitcoin (BTC) The bear market can be explained by the four-year cycle and long-term BTC holders selling at the psychological level of $100,000, according to Anthony Scaramucci, managing partner at investment firm SkyBridge.
Bitcoin’s four-year market cycle has been “softened” by institutional investors and BTC exchange-traded fund inflows (ETFs) that have dampened volatility, Scaramucci said, but the change in market dynamics has not completely erased BTC’s traditional cycles. He said:
“We’re in a four-year cycle, and there were traditional whales, OGs, who believed in the four-year cycle, and guess what happens in life when you believe in something? You create a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
BTC will continue to experience unstable price action for most of the year, until the fourth quarter of 2026, when prices begin to rise again in a new bull market cycle, he said.
Scaramucci said market participants, including himself, widely expected BTC to climb to $150,000 in 2025, led by the US president. Donald Trump’s pro-crypto agenda and US regulators are preparing for the digital assets sector.
However, the October stock market crashwhich caused BTC to plummet from an all-time high of around $126,000 to a low of $60,000, completely shattered the widely held consensus.
Markets often move opposite to prevailing investor sentiment, Scaramucci said, citing as an example the price action of Bitcoin in the first months of 2023, after the collapse of the FTX exchange in November 2022.
“It is in a period of great disinterest and apathy that the bull market has started again,” he said, adding that the current BTC bear market is a “garden-yard” correction consistent with previous downturns.
Certainly, crypto market leaders, analysts and players continue to debate whether the four-year cycle theory of Bitcoin is still valid after BTC ended 2025 in the red or whether changing market dynamics have permanently altered the price movement of BTC.
Related: Bitcoin Price Aims to Hold $70,000 Amid Growing Inflation Concerns
Could the war in Iran and geopolitical turmoil cause even more pain for BTC?
The price of BTC fell below $69,000 Saturday as the war in Iran entered its third week, rattling risky assets across the board.
Stock market investors saw the S&P 500 index continue its decline on Friday, falling about 1.3%. One day earlier The gauge closed below its 200-day moving average, a key technical indicator closely watched to gauge the overall trend in equity markets, for the first time in 10 months.
Some analysts now foresee a potential 50% drop in BTC price in 2026 if it continues to show a positive correlation with the S&P 500 index.
Review: The debate over the four-year Bitcoin cycle is over: Benjamin Cowen
