Ditching the 4-Year Cycle: 3 New Mental Models for Bitcoin's Growth.

The maturation of Bitcoin requires us to update our models to better understand its growth.

For years, the Bitcoin world has moved to a familiar rhythm. Like a sacred celestial alignment, the 4-year cycle, orchestrated by the programmatic supply shock of the halving, has been the dominant map for navigating the market. It was our North Star. The narrative was simple, powerful, and, for a long time, remarkably predictive: a halving occurs, a supply crisis ensues, a parabolic bull market follows, a dramatic crash purges the market, and a long winter of accumulation begins anew.

This model gave us comfort. It provided a framework for conviction during the brutal drawdowns and a thesis for patience during the long, sideways periods. But here in 2025, as we navigate the landscape forged by the 2024 halving, many long-time observers are feeling a shift in the tectonic plates beneath our feet. The cycles seem to be lengthening. The explosive, vertical price action of the past feels more subdued. The simple, supply-side narrative, while still relevant, feels increasingly insufficient to explain the behavior of a multi-trillion-euro global asset.

The reason is simple: Bitcoin is growing up. The market is no longer composed solely of retail speculators and cypherpunks. It now includes publicly traded corporations, nation-states, and tidal waves of institutional capital via financial products like ETFs. The demand side of the equation has become infinitely more complex, and the sheer mass of the network now exerts its powerful gravity.

If our old map no longer perfectly describes the territory, we must evolve. It's time to supplement—or perhaps even ditch—the rigid 4-year cycle and embrace more sophisticated mental models that reflect Bitcoin's maturation. Here are three powerful frameworks to help you understand the next decade of Bitcoin's growth.

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