Bitcoin’s 4-year cycle is broken, and this time, data proves it

Data shows that BTC’s “average annual returns have gradually declined, with no peaks at all in the last cycle, confirming the hypothesis that Bitcoin's risk/return structure has changed.”

The phenomenon of financial bubbles is hotly debated among industry operators, and there are several academic papers on the subject, starting with Professor Didier Sornette’s 2014 study of financial bubbles. In fact, the paper defines a “bubble” as a period of unsustainable growth with prices rising faster and faster, i.e., growing more than exponentially. Obviously, bubbles by definition are destined to burst and bring prices back to their starting value or worse.

In the recent past, Bitcoin (BTC) has experienced periods of more than exponential growth, followed by very sharp declines, called “crypto winter,” a period when no one talked about Bitcoin and other assets anymore, meaning there was a freeze around the sector, and prices collapsed. Previous declines following the Bitcoin price bubble were -91%, -82%, -81%, and -75% in the last crypto winter, respectively.

So far, the price trend of Bitcoin has followed a distinct cycle marked by halving every 210,000 blocks, equal to about 4 years, which has rhythmically determined periods of decline, recovery, and then exponential growth.

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