Bitcoin’s well-known four-year cycle may no longer define the asset’s long-term behavior, said Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood, who believes institutional adoption is reshaping everything from volatility to the depth of possible future drawdowns.
In an interview with Fox Business Channel on Tuesday, Wood said that as large financial institutions accumulate assets, Bitcoin’s large crashes (which in earlier years would typically fall by 75% to 90%) are becoming less common.
“Volatility is coming down,” she said, adding that institutions “will prevent further declines.” “We may have seen the lows weeks ago,” Wood said.
Her views challenge more than a decade of market expectations. Bitcoin’s cycle traditionally follows halving events, block reward reductions that occur approximately every four years.
The most recent halving occurred on April 20, 2024, slashing mining rewards to 3.125 BTC, which has historically been the trigger for tight supply and strong rallies.
However, Wood believes market behavior has changed as Bitcoin trades more like a risk asset, moving in line with stocks and real estate, rather than acting as a hedge.
“Right now, gold is more of a safe-haven asset,” she said, noting that investors use gold to protect against geopolitical shocks.
Ark continues to increase its cryptocurrency exposure, recently buying more shares of Coinbase, Circle, and its own Ark 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB).
Wood’s comments sparked wider industry debate. Analysts from major institutions say that Bitcoin no longer responds to the halving cycle like it used to.
Earlier this week, Standard Chartered said ETF buying reduced the impact of the halving as a price driver.
Analyst Geoffrey Kendrick wrote that the model of price peaking 18 months after each halving “no longer holds,” and the bank lowered its 2025 price target to $100,000 from $200,000.
On social media, the debate has raged since late July.
Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan and CryptoQuant founder Ki Young Ju both said that institutional capital inflows effectively eliminate traditional cycles. “The cycle is dead,” Zhu wrote.
Over the years, Bitcoin has followed a rhythm: accumulation, halving-related rallies, peaks, and then years of slump.
Source: BitBo
But this time, after hitting $122,000 in July, analysts said Bitcoin’s behavior looked different, slower, more stable and less tied to retail speculation.
Sentora executive Patrick Heusser pointed to the Bitcoin power law model, which views price growth as part of a long-term curve affected by time, rather than a strict four-year window.
He said the halving is still important, but only as a disruption in a broader trend.
He noted that “the daily supply was reduced by only 450 BTC,” saying this was minuscule compared to Bitcoin’s trillions in market capitalization and the billions of dollars flowing into spot ETFs.
Institutional accumulation, including ETFs, corporate Treasuries and new regulatory products, is widely seen as the biggest driver of reshaping the market. These buyers rarely exit positions quickly, locking in supply in a way that calms volatility.
Still, some companies say the cycle remains intact. In August, Glassnode released data showing that the structure of the current cycle mirrors the structure of earlier periods, including long-term holder behavior and weaker demand later on.
Despite institutional involvement, Glassnode believes Bitcoin’s timing remains closely aligned with past multi-year peaks.
While experts debate whether this cycle is broken or simply evolving, most agree that investors should expect a market defined by long-term trends rather than sharp, rapid swings.
Source: TXMC/X
Analysts said the decline could be smaller, closer to 30% to 50%, rather than the steep declines of the past few years, but the rebound could also last longer.
Strategies built around precise halving times may no longer have the same precision.
Macro analyst Lyn Alden recently said that Bitcoin’s current market conditions lack the excitement needed for a major collapse, adding that broader economic forces now determine the asset’s direction.
She predicts that Bitcoin will regain $100,000 by 2026, but warned that the road to getting there will be bumpy.
Read original reporting by Hassan Shittu on Cryptonews.com “Bitcoin’s 4-year cycle is being broken as institutions stabilize market, says Cathie Wood”