Retail investors should stop guessing the cycles: use data to build their own market perception and avoid emotional traps.

This round of the market appears to be sluggish, blunt, volatility closes, ETF progress repeatedly, altcoin rotation is weak, and even fell below $90,000 less than a month after hitting a new high, is it a bull market or a bear start?. (Synopsis: On-chain data analysis: Is it suitable for bitcoin now?) Bitcoin has gone for nearly 18 months from the halving in April 2024 to a new high of $120,000 in October 2025. If you just look at this path, it still seems to be running according to the periodic law. Halving bottoms out, peaks within a year, and then steps into a pullback. But what really makes the market wonder is not whether it has risen, but that it has not risen as usual. There is no surge like in 2017, nor the national frenzy in 2021. This round of the market appeared sluggish, blunted, volatility converged, ETF progress repeatedly, altcoin rotation was weak, and even fell below $90,000 in less than a month after hitting a new high. Is this a bull market, or is it the beginning of the bear? So, this article will take a closer look: Why do many people feel that the four-year cycle has failed, what parts of the four-year cycle theory are still valid, and what causes the cycle to be disrupted, and why more and more people feel that the four-year cycle is not working? Although the price of bitcoin has also risen after the halving, this round of the market has gone down, and there are many things wrong from beginning to end. Bitcoin halved in April 2024, and at a historical pace, the market should have a major upswing and emotional upswing over the next 12 to 18 months. That's pretty much the case, and in October 2025, Bitcoin rushed to a new high of $125,000. But the real problem is that in this round of the market, there is no such final madness, and there is no national emotion to take the baton. Soon after the price reached a new high, it quickly fell back 25%, briefly below $90,000. This is not the “end of the bubble” that should appear in a typical cycle, more like the market has been extinguished before it heats up. In addition, the mood is also significantly depressed. In the past, at every bull market high, on-chain funds were active, altcoins soared, and retail investors ran into the market, but until now, the market value dominance rate of Bitcoin has remained at nearly 59%. It shows that most of the funds are still stuck in mainstream coins, altcoins have not kept up, and the rotation lacks explosiveness. tenfold, dozens of times the increase from the past several cycles, and this round, bitcoin has risen only 7 or 8 times from the low to the high at the end of 2022; From the halving point, the increase is less than 2 times. The moderation of the market is also reflected in the structure of funds. After the ETF was launched, institutions began to continue to buy and became the main force in the market. Institutions are more rational and better at controlling volatility, which makes market sentiment fluctuate less and the pace of trading smoother. The price formation mechanism has changed, no longer just “supply and demand decisions”, but more driven by the logic of structured transactions. To sum up, this round of anomalies, including sentiment ebb, weakening earnings, disrupted rhythm, and institutional dominance, does make the market intuitively feel that the familiar four-year cycle is no longer good. What parts of the four-year cycle theory are still valid? Despite the confusion on the surface, a deeper analysis shows that the logic of the four-year cycle theory has not been completely lost. Fundamental factors, such as changes in supply and demand triggered by the halving, are still at work, but in a more moderate form than in the past. The following will analyze the parts of the cycle theory that still work from three aspects: supply, on-chain indicators and historical data. 2.1 The long-term supply logic of the halving Bitcoin halves every four years, which means that the new supply continues to decrease. In the long run, this mechanism remains the key logic supporting price increases. In April 2024, Bitcoin completed its fourth halving, reducing the block reward from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC. Although the total number of bitcoins is close to 94%, and the marginal change from a single halving is getting smaller, the market's expectation of scarcity has not disappeared. After the past few rounds of halving, the long-term bullish sentiment in the market is still clear, and many people choose to continue to hold rather than sell. The same is true for this round. Despite high price volatility, the impact of tighter supply remains. As the chart shows, the unrealized and realized market capitalization of Bitcoin in 2025 increased significantly compared to the end of 2022, indicating that Bitcoin has had a large amount of continuous inflows in recent years. 2.2 Periodicity of on-chain indicators Bitcoin investors' behavior patterns show a cyclical “hoarding-profit-taking” cycle, which is still reflected in on-chain data. Typical on-chain metrics include MVRV, SOPR, RHODL, etc. MVRV is the ratio of market value to real value, and when the MVRV value rises, it means that Bitcoin is overvalued. MVRV fell to 0.8 at the end of 2023, rose to 2.8 in good times in 2024, and in the pullback in early 2025, MVRV fell back below 2, valuations are not overvalued or undervalued, and the overall cycle is still up and down. SOPR can be simply understood as the price at the time of selling / the price at the time of buying. In terms of cyclical law, SOPR=1 is regarded as a bull-bear watershed, below 1 indicates a loss in selling coins, and above 1 it is mostly profitable. In this cycle, the bear SOPR in 2022 will continue to be below 1, and after 2023, it will stand on 1 and enter a profit cycle. When the market is in a bull market in 2024-2025, the indicator is more than 1 most of the time, in line with the cyclical law. RHODL is a measure of the “realized value” ratio between short-term holders (1 week) and medium- to long-term holders (1–2 years) to identify market top risks. Historically, when the indicator enters the extremely high zone (red band), it often corresponds to the peak of a bullish bubble (e.g. 2013, 2017). In 2021-2022, RHODL soared again, although it did not break through the historical extremes, but indicated that the market structure entered the late stage. Now the indicator has also entered cyclical highs, which to some extent also indicate that the price is at the top. On the whole, the cyclical phenomenon reflected by these on-chain indicators still echoes the historical law, although the specific values are slightly different, but the on-chain logic of the bottom and top is still clear. 2.3 Diminishing increases seem inevitable From another perspective, the gradual decrease in the increase at the apex of each cycle compared with the previous round is actually part of the normal evolution of the cyclical law. The high rose about 20 times from 2013 to 2017, narrowed to about 3.5 times from 2017 to 2021, and rose from $69,000 to $125,000, an increase of about 80%. Although the gains have converged significantly, the trend line continues and does not completely deviate from the cyclical track. This marginal decline is also the result of the expansion of the market volume and the weakening of the marginal push of incremental funds, and does not represent the failure of cyclical logic. After all, the logic of the “four-year cycle” is still working at some point. The halving affects supply and demand, and market behavior still follows the rhythm of “panic - greed”, but this time the market is no longer as clear as before. The truth of cycle chaos: too many variables, too broken narratives If the cycle is still there, why is this round of markets so difficult to read? The reason is that the previous single halving rhythm is now disrupted by multiple forces. Specifically, there are several reasons why this cycle is different: 1. The Structural Impact of ETFs and Institutional Funds Since the launch of the Bitcoin spot ETF in 2024, the market structure has occurred…