Why bitcoin’s real bull market may still be ahead

For years, many crypto investors have relied on the idea of a predictable 4‑year bitcoin cycle tied to the halving. But when you zoom out and compare bitcoin’s price action to what’s happening in the broader economy, a different story starts to emerge. The argument: the classic 4‑year cycle is breaking down, and the real, expansion-driven bull market for bitcoin and crypto may still be ahead of us.

Why the 4‑year bitcoin cycle is losing relevance

The traditional 4‑year cycle theory says bitcoin moves in repeating phases around each halving: a brutal bear market, a recovery, a euphoric blow‑off top, and then the process repeats. That pattern broadly fit earlier cycles, but the most recent price action doesn’t line up as cleanly.

From 2022 into the 2025 high, bitcoin did see a strong move up. However, when you overlay that period with what was happening in the macroeconomy, it looks less like a full-blown bull market and more like a recovery rally inside a harsh economic environment. It lacked the kind of broad economic expansion that has historically powered the strongest risk‑asset bull runs.

Instead of anchoring everything to halving dates, it makes more sense to look at the business cycle: whether the economy is in expansion or contraction. That’s what has driven every major bull and bear phase in traditional markets—and there’s no good reason crypto should be different. For more context on how this thinking challenges the older model, see why the Bitcoin four-year cycle may no longer matter.

The business cycle: the real engine behind crypto bull markets

The business cycle is often tracked using indicators like the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), which measures whether economic activity is expanding or contracting. Historically, strong expansions in the PMI line up with powerful bull markets across risk assets.

In the last crypto cycle, the big bitcoin bull market from 2020 into early 2021 coincided with a strong upswing in the business cycle. After that, things changed dramatically. The economy shifted into a prolonged contraction, and at the same time, central banks began quantitative tightening (QT)—actively pulling liquidity out of the system.

Crypto felt this double hit hard. From mid‑2022, we had record-breaking liquidity extraction, combined with a wave of internal crypto blow‑ups like Celsius and FTX. This wasn’t just a normal post‑halving correction; it was a brutal environment for all risk assets, and crypto was at the far end of that risk curve.

Now, that backdrop is changing. QT that began in June 2022 finally ended around December 2025. The business cycle, as tracked by PMI and other indicators, appears to be shifting from contraction back into expansion. Historically, that’s exactly when major bull markets begin.

What happened during the last tightening cycle

The recent QT cycle wasn’t the first. We saw an earlier round of QT from late 2017 to mid‑2019. During that period, bitcoin went through a classic bear market, grinding lower as liquidity was drained from the system.

When QT ended back then, bitcoin didn’t immediately explode into a new all‑time high. Instead, the market went through a normalization phase—a dip and consolidation period after the tightening stopped. Only after that did the next major leg higher develop.

The current cycle looks surprisingly similar, just more extreme. The latest QT phase lasted longer and was more aggressive, and the contraction in economic activity was deeper. After QT ended in December 2025, bitcoin again entered a post‑QT normalization phase. This is likely what we’ve just lived through: a cooling-off period after the worst of the liquidity squeeze, not the main bull market itself.

Reassessing bitcoin’s long-term chart structure

On the weekly chart, bitcoin recently formed what looked like a large inverse head and shoulders pattern: a left shoulder near the end of the last bull cycle, a head at the 2022 low, and a shallow right shoulder as price recovered. The breakout from this pattern around late 2024 looked promising and even suggested a very high measured move target.

However, price eventually fell back below the neckline and has since treated that area as resistance. From a strict technical-analysis standpoint, that invalidates the pattern. It’s no longer a clean, rule‑based inverse head and shoulders.

Even so, the entire price range defined by that structure—essentially the macro neckline area—still matters. It marks a major zone where bulls and bears have been fighting over long periods. That range can still be useful when thinking about broad upside targets, especially when we combine it with the macro backdrop.

Two broad upside scenarios for bitcoin

Because the business cycle is still unfolding, any price target has to be treated as a range, not a precise prediction. Based on the size of the prior move and the potential measured move from the larger structure, two broad scenarios stand out:

1. Mild to normal expansion: If the business cycle enters a decent but not spectacular expansion—growth that’s positive but not a 1990s-style productivity boom—bitcoin could reasonably top out near the lower end of the range. One way to estimate this is to take the last major move (roughly from $15,000 to around $70,000), measure that distance, and project it upward from the breakout zone. That points to an area around $137,000 as a plausible upper bound in a more modest expansion.

2. Strong, productivity-driven boom: If we get something closer to a 1990s-style boom—sustained productivity growth, potentially driven by AI and digital infrastructure, combined with deeper institutional adoption of crypto—the upside could be far larger. In that environment, the full measured move from the larger inverse head and shoulders structure could come into play, pointing to a broad zone somewhere in the low‑to‑mid $300,000s, with rough estimates stretching toward $390,000.

No one can say today which path the economy will take. That uncertainty is exactly why the range is so wide. Any attempt to claim a precise top like “$265,000 and not a dollar more” is more storytelling than data.

Why macro data matters more than fixed dates

Instead of fixating on a calendar-based cycle or a single price target, it makes more sense to watch the data that actually drives asset prices. That includes:

• Business cycle indicators: PMI and similar surveys that show whether the economy is expanding or contracting.

• Liquidity conditions: Whether central banks are adding liquidity (like during quantitative easing) or removing it (like during QT).

• Risk sentiment across markets: How other risk assets, such as small-cap stocks (for example, the Russell 2000) and economically sensitive metals (like copper versus gold), are behaving.

Other asset classes clearly respond to these forces. Copper vs. gold tracks the business cycle closely. So does the Russell 2000. Altcoins, when viewed as a group, also show a strong relationship: after QT ended and the business cycle started to turn up, altcoin market cap began to curl higher as well.

Given that, there’s no reason to believe crypto exists in its own isolated 4‑year universe. It’s simply the furthest out on the risk curve, which means it often reacts later—but more violently—than traditional assets.

Short-term structure: volatility before liftoff

Zooming into the daily chart, bitcoin is currently pressing against a resistance area that has produced some bearish divergence on momentum indicators like RSI and MACD. That doesn’t necessarily mean a major top, but it does suggest the potential for short‑term downside or sideways consolidation.

Right now, price is trading in a fairly clear range. On the downside, an extreme pullback could revisit the 0.618–0.786 Fibonacci retracement area of the most recent swing, roughly in the $63,000–$69,000 zone. That would be a deep but technically reasonable correction and could even form the right shoulder of a new, smaller inverse head and shoulders pattern.

Above that, several key moving averages cluster between about $70,000 and $80,000 (20‑day, 50‑day, and 200‑day). Bitcoin could easily find support somewhere in that band, cool off momentum, and then attempt another push higher without a dramatic flush.

In either case, the bigger picture doesn’t change: this looks like consolidation in a post‑QT environment, not the start of a new, multi‑year bear market.

How a new breakout could confirm the next phase

If a smaller inverse head and shoulders does form on the daily chart and bitcoin breaks out decisively, the measured move from that pattern would target roughly the previous all‑time high region and beyond—potentially into the $120,000s.

That kind of breakout, especially if it coincides with clear signs of business cycle expansion and improving liquidity, could mark the true start of the next full‑blown bull market: not just a recovery rally, but a sustained, macro-backed advance.

Importantly, bitcoin doesn’t have to respect any one pattern for this scenario to play out. Even if the smaller structure never fully forms, a strong move above the current resistance range, backed by expansion in the broader economy, would still fit the thesis of a new bull phase beginning.

Planning exits with data, not dates

If the 4‑year cycle is no longer a reliable guide, how should long‑term investors think about taking profits and managing risk?

The answer is to build a roadmap based on macro data and risk models rather than fixed dates. That means:

• Tracking the business cycle: Watching for signs that expansion is peaking and contraction may be on the horizon.

• Monitoring liquidity trends: Paying attention to when central banks start tightening again or when financial conditions become meaningfully less supportive.

• Using structured risk models: Defining rules or frameworks for reducing exposure when certain macro and market conditions line up, instead of guessing based on intuition or a calendar.

Under this approach, the key question in a future scenario—say it’s 2027 and bitcoin is trading at $280,000—won’t be, “Did we hit some magic target?” or “Is it four years since the last halving?” The more useful question will be, “What is the macro data telling us about where we are in the cycle, and what does our risk model suggest we should do?”

This data‑driven mindset can also help you understand where we are now. If you want to compare it with more traditional cycle thinking, it may be useful to read about where bitcoin is in its current 4‑year cycle, then contrast that with a business‑cycle‑first view.

The bottom line: the big bull market may still be ahead

When you strip away the calendar-based narratives and focus on the business cycle, the picture becomes clearer:

• The last truly expansion-driven crypto bull market was 2020–2021.

• Since then, we’ve endured a historic period of contraction and quantitative tightening.

• QT has now ended, and the business cycle appears to be turning back toward expansion.

• Bitcoin has likely been in a normalization and consolidation phase, not the main bull run.

If that interpretation is right, the real macro-backed bull market for bitcoin and crypto has not yet fully played out. The eventual top could be anywhere from around $137,000 in a milder expansion to the low‑to‑mid $300,000s in a powerful, productivity-driven boom—but the exact number matters less than the process.

What matters most is recognizing that crypto is tied into the same economic forces that move every other risk asset. By watching the business cycle and liquidity instead of just the halving date, long‑term investors can make more informed decisions about both entries and exits in the years ahead.