On-chain analyst Willy Woo says the Bitcoin (BTC) 4-year cycle may be ending. In a post on X, he argued the market could adopt the 6-8 year debt cycle of traditional finance (TradFi).

The claim lands with Bitcoin near $78,011 after an August rebound. The coin had lost roughly half its value from the October 2025 peak of $126,198.

Why the Bitcoin 4-Year Cycle May Have Lost Its Engine

Historically, each halving cut the pace of new supply in half and reset Bitcoin’s four-year cycle. That recurring supply shock was strong enough to move the price on a fixed schedule. Woo now believes the mechanism has become too small to matter.

Issuance has run near 0.8% of supply since April 2024, and the 2028 halving will cut it to roughly 0.4%. For comparison, gold miners added about 1.7% to above-ground stock in 2025, based on World Gold Council data. Bitcoin’s supply engine is therefore already weaker than gold’s.

Fidelity Digital Assets reached a similar conclusion in February. Its research found volatility declining even as Bitcoin set record highs, behavior it links to maturation. Spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which existed in no prior halving cycle, add to that structural break.

Inside TradFi’s 6-8 Year Debt Cycle

Crypto traders know the halving as a supply event. The debt cycle, in contrast, is a demand and liquidity event, and it is the rhythm that stock and bond markets already trade on.

Economist Ray Dalio popularized the framework. In his model, the Fed cuts rates after a downturn, and credit becomes cheap. Households and companies borrow and spend, which lifts earnings and asset prices, then pushes inflation higher. The Fed responds with rate hikes, credit tightens, growth stalls, and a recession forces the next round of cuts.

One full loop typically takes several years. Data from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) puts the average post-war US cycle at about 75 months, or just over six years, from peak to peak. Woo’s 6-8 year range, therefore, sits at the long end of the record.

The last Bitcoin cycle arguably fits this loop as well as the halving one. The Fed cut rates to zero in March 2020, and Bitcoin peaked in November 2021. Hikes began in March 2022, and the bear market followed. Both models explain that sequence, which is why the debate is hard to settle.

However, Woo’s version has a gap. Bitcoin launched in 2009, and the only recession since then was the two-month COVID downturn in 2020, which the Fed met with immediate stimulus.

Woo said on the What Bitcoin Did podcast that Bitcoin has never faced a true business-cycle downturn, and that 2026 could be the first real test. That test may be close. According to CME Group, there is a 60% chance of a 25 bps rate hike during the September FOMC meeting.

The Case Against a New Regime

Cycle purists argue the old script is still running on time. Bitcoin peaked about 18 months after the April 2024 halving, inside the historical window, and then entered a deep drawdown. That is the same sequence that followed the 2017 and 2021 tops, and it has kept the four-year cycle debate alive.

There is also a sample-size problem on both sides. Bitcoin has completed only four cycles, and a 6-8 year orbit cannot be confirmed or refuted before the next decade.

For now, both stories fit Bitcoin’s recent price action. The coin climbed from about $62,900 at the start of August. Even so, it remains roughly 38% down from its all-time highs.

The signposts from here follow the calendar. In the last two cycles, the bottom arrived about a year after the peak, which under the old script points to a low around late 2026 and a recovery into the 2028 halving. A longer orbit would instead show the low drifting into 2027 or beyond, with rallies tracking Fed easing rather than the halving date.

If the halving no longer sets Bitcoin’s clock, the asset becomes a macro trade with a higher beta.

Source: BeInCrypto