Galaxy In-Depth Research: Is Bitcoin’s Four-Year Cycle Still Valid?

Throughout Bitcoin's 17-year history, its price has consistently fluctuated within long-term cycles. Roughly every four years, it climbs to a frenzied peak, experiences a painful drop to a bottom, and then begins to recover. Historically, this rhythm has been anchored by the four-year halving, which directly halves the regular new supply. Although the influence of consecutive halvings is waning, and the market is filled with predictions of various "supercycles," empirical data once again shows that the four-year cycle remains intact. This report explores these fluctuations and a pattern emerging in Bitcoin's modern history: each fluctuation is gentler than the last. The peak in October 2025 was one of the calmest tops in Bitcoin's history, and the subsequent decline was also unusually mild. Given such restrained highs, should we expect the final cycle bottom to be exceptionally shallow? If so, where will that bottom likely be? This report assumes that the current pullback bottom has not yet been reached and provides data to support this assumption. The data also suggests that a calmer top in October 2025 could lead to a higher cycle bottom. Historical analogies show that the current pullback's base case bottom is between $40,000 and $46,000, roughly occurring between now and the fourth quarter of 2026. Crucially, this report relies entirely on market data, on-chain data, and time cycle analysis. Our predicted cycle bottom range does not utilize or rely on assessments of the likelihood, timing, or impact of external events such as regulatory, market, or geopolitical developments. Each Bitcoin cycle consists of moving from a previous low, through a halving, to a top, and then back to the next low. The bottom of the current cycle has not yet formed. Based on the report date of June 9, 2026, the pullback magnitude and elapsed time are "to date" data. Note the two patterns this report is based on: first, the decline from peak to trough in each cycle is narrowing; second, historically, a bottom has appeared approximately 12 to 13 months after each top. The current cycle is only eight months from its most recent top. Index-based comparisons show that the October 2025 peak appears remarkably restrained compared to previous cyclical peaks. Consequently, the average price the market is paying for its holdings (i.e., realized price, or "cost benchmark") is unusually close to its all-time high, reaching 43.7% of the previous all-time high (ATH). In contrast, this percentage was typically only one-third or even lower in past cycles. This is a crucial data point: if a sell-off of the same scale as the end of past bear markets were to occur, this time it would stabilize at a much higher dollar level.Comparing the timing, amplitude, and on-chain indicators of the cycle, the current pullback may have bottomed out in the following range. The price levels mentioned above and the analysis in the report all point to our view that the bottom of this cycle has not yet been found. Historically, very few cycle bottom indicators have been triggered; from a time perspective, the current decline is still relatively short compared to historical pullbacks; and once genuine panic occurs, the cost benchmark itself will also decrease. Our core argument is that, empirically, the four-year cycle remains valid, only the cycle amplitude has contracted. Calmer tops have raised the lower limit, but not eliminated it. Precisely capturing tops or bottoms while they are forming is almost impossible, or at least extremely difficult; but in hindsight, everything is always clear. Therefore, our approach is to list the conditions that have appeared in previous tops and bottoms and see how many are currently manifesting simultaneously. To establish a system of indicators for evaluating past tops and bottoms, we examined five types of evidence: valuation, profit-taking, miners, trends, and sentiment. Applying this five-dimensional perspective to both ends of the current cycle yields a clear picture: Bitcoin's volatility is shrinking. Each top is less frenzied than the previous one, and subsequent crashes are shallower. If this amplitude "contraction" is real and holds true at both ends, it provides valuable information about the anticipated cycle lows that are approaching during the current pullback. The tops are real, but they are the calmest ever. At the October highs, only two of the 11 classic warning signs reached very slight levels of the previous tops, and barely even touched them. The clearest valuation metric, the market capitalization to realized market capitalization ratio (MVRV), peaked at only 2.29, while the MVRV of the previous three tops ranged from 2.93 to 5.91. However, the timing is textbook perfect: this top occurred 1,062 days after the previous low, coinciding with the peaks in 2017 and 2021. During this pullback, only four of the 13 bottoming signals were triggered. The strongest signals that mark a true bottom (price falling below the cost basis, holders collectively incurring losses, continuous selling at a loss, and deep panic selling) have yet to appear. The current -51% drop is still far milder than the -77% to -85% lows that marked the end of previous cycles. Based on the cyclical clock, the window for a bear market bottom won't open until around the end of 2026. Before drawing any conclusions, let's present a fact upon which the rest of this report rests: Bitcoin's volatility has narrowed at both ends. The hype at the top has cooled with each cycle, while the subsequent bottoms have risen with each cycle.In other words, the distance between the most overvalued and most undervalued points in each cycle is constantly narrowing. The bottom isn't located by a single integer percentage, but rather relative to two key anchors: the cost benchmark and the 200-week moving average (200w MA). Measured against these two anchors, the lows of the past three bear markets all fell significantly below both. Today's price hasn't even touched that area yet. Even after a 51% drop, Bitcoin's price is still 14% above the cost benchmark and only 1.5% below the four-year moving average. According to the benchmarks used to pinpoint previous bottoms, this bottom hasn't arrived yet. Our base case scenario, assuming the bottom is simply a continuation of the trend towards fair value over cycles (MVRV of 0.75 to 0.86), would be around $40,000 to $46,000. In the event of a more severe, deep correction similar to 2018 or 2022 (MVRV of 0.56 to 0.70), the price would fall to $30,000 to $37,000. The real point is that all of this overturns old rules of thumb. A drop of -77% to -85% (the precise benchmark of past cycles) would place the current bottom at $19,000 to $29,000. However, this rule actually double-counts the impact of a calm top: the extreme drops of 75% to 85% in the past were built on peaks of extreme frenzy; while the current peak is milder and closer to the cost benchmark. Applying a deep drop based on extreme frenzy to this mild peak will naturally distort the bottom prediction significantly. The cost benchmark is reflexive. It looks like a bottom line, but it's built up by the price of the last traded shares. In a real sell-off, the loss-making turnover of shares lowers this average, so this "floor" not only fails to support the price but will also follow the price downwards. This is the biggest limitation of the argument for raising the lower limit. The stable, price-insensitive buying from spot ETFs and corporate treasuries is something that didn't exist in past cycles; it tends to support a higher bottom. But while it can buffer a decline, it can also easily amplify it. A higher floor, and the risk of it being eroded in panic, are two sides of the same coin. We believe the rule of thumb that "Bitcoin has historically fallen 75% to 85%, so this cycle will bottom out at $19,000 to $29,000" is outdated as a literal price floor. Even if a deep correction similar to the past occurs, it now corresponds to a much higher figure. This is a descriptive study explaining the arithmetic logic of how a calm cycle top shapes a cycle bottom, and not necessarily a prediction of price direction or price targets. [ChainCatcher]