Is This the Bitcoin Supercycle or Is the Four-Year Pattern Still Intact? | Bitcoin 2026

Okay, welcome. So, uh this is the uh last uh panel of the last day of the show. Um so, uh congrats for everybody who made it out here and uh only thing I'm the only thing between this and the whatever happy hour party you're going to. So, thank you. Um we are going to talk today about the four-year cycle. Um is it still a thing? Is it dead? Is it wounded? And uh I got my orange jacket on and my Bitcoin super cycle logos inside. So um and I will uh so my name is Michael Turpin. I've been in uh Bitcoin since 2012. I got really heavily involved in early 2013. Started Bit Angels um which ended up like doing a early funding of a lot of the uh early altcoins uh including Ethereum and Tether and a bunch of others. and then um started the first uh conference uh called coin agenda for uh um uh for crypto investing and it's now called tokenize. It's actually later this week and um uh most recently I I I wrote the book Bitcoin Supercycle. uh now have a fund by that name and um beginning to talk about a uh a DAT as well along those thesis that you make more money by selling Bitcoin at the top and buying it back at the bottom and that the cycles are so far very predictable and they will only change when we get a supply shock starting a super cycle. So that's me. Um, I live in Puerto Rico and I've got a home in Vegas in Miami. And uh, rest of the guests, tell me, uh, your thoughts on the super cycle or the cycle. Are they broken? And, uh, a little background on you. >> Hello. Hello everyone. I'm Cheyan Hussein. I'm CEO and founder of Block Bites Capital. We're a private asset management firm based out of Virginia. Uh, we have been in the space since uh, 2013 and we've been managing portfolios since 2023. And I'm definitely of the opinion that the four-year cycle is dead. We're in a super cycle. I'm just joking. I think I think I think it's difficult to say something is dead. I think it's difficult to be to speak in absolutes. I think definitely the four-year cycle while it's not broken. I do think that it's been diluted by larger, more persistent sources of demand and liquidity as we've seen over the previous several years. And you know, this does two things. I think it's it still respects um the history of the four-year cycle, but it also opens the door to major structural change uh with the way that we use and invest in Bitcoin. the rational route here. Yeah. Um I um my thoughts on the four-year cycle is that it's um it's still intact. I mean historically the four-ear cycle comes forward from the the having cycle right. we had the having supply shocks that in the beginning were uh quite severe but now um you know they are actually a minor impact on on the current markets and so I wouldn't be surprised to shift away from the four-year cycle as um you know the h havingings have less impact and so other catalyst pop up that take take the place and and so but we will we'll still we'll always have cycles um it's just that the dynamics might change over time um so far the four-year cycle is actually still intact because you know if you if you look at the 4 year cycle we're exactly where we should be historically. Now there are some some differences uh this cycle and maybe worth getting into some of the differences uh between this cycle and previous cycles uh because there there are a lot we we see a lot of institutional adoption. Um we had a lot of sell pressure from uh from long-term holders this time around the the 100k psychological level and um so there are definitely some some dynamics that are that are different. Um but um moving forward I think um still uh for for the time being we will continue it will continue to look like we we will move in the in keep moving in the in the fouryear cycle in the near term. Um however uh I think do over time indeed I uh I'm I'm of the same opinion that we're we're going to move away from it uh as Michael Turpin was uh was saying in the beginning uh some sort of supply shock um that will come uh at some point uh which uh you know takes bitcoin to the next level. I think um what we have seen is that there's a lot of um this cycle was was not as retail driven. Um so I think uh what has happened is that um in this cycle particularly I mean each cycle we saw diminishing returns right um what and and we saw a new influx of retail moving in every cycle um however this cycle was much more institutional and more structural inflows and and and less retail and so I think what we what we're dealing with is like a um the people like if you think of the adoption curve of of a new uh technology like Bitcoin uh you know you have the early investors and then you have the early majority and the late majority. Um I think if we think of retail uh basically retail had 15 years uh of a head start to institutions because you know this cycle only institutions really came into the space and and so what we have seen is that um that that are retail had 15 a 15 year head start and I think the people of retail that have were open-minded enough to do actually the proof of work to get to to understand the value proposition of Bitcoin u they are already in the space and and so I think the the early majority which you know is maybe not as willing to do the proof of work to understand the true value proposition they come uh through institutions they come through uh you know financial advisors and so forth. So I think if you if you know think of an average person that earns a salary um you know that say uh that part of that salary goes into pension fund and now because of financial advisors that actually do understand the value proposition of bitcoin um you know they will put some of uh of the of of those percentages in in into bitcoin and and so a lot of passive flows are going to come out of the uh of actually the the early majority of people that would not be really willing to do the work and I think that's like a transition phase that we're currently And >> so I'm Matt from Bitcoin Magazine Pro and I really hate the phrase this time is different. But if there ever were a time for this time to be different, it's probably this time, which was a bit of a spaghetti of words there. But we're seeing Bitcoin in conditions in which everyone a few years ago would have expected considerable downside. Geopolitical uncertainties. We're seeing underperformance uh on a macro basis relative to commodities like gold and silver and and equity indexes rising to all-time highs. But over the past couple months, we've actually been rallying faster in terms of relative purchasing power to these other comparable assets. Now, if you measure the four-year cycle rather than just measuring Bitcoin versus the US dollar or other fiat currencies which are, as we all know, debasing at multiple percentage points a year, if we measure Bitcoin as a percentage of global wealth or versus something like gold to see its relative purchasing power, because even throughout 2025, we made a new all-time high, but the cycle felt terrible because everything else was going up at a faster rate than Bitcoin. So, if we measure Bitcoin's relative purchasing power, we actually peaked in around December 2024 and have actually exceeded a one-year bare market. So, again, to play into what other people have said here, we're also seeing a shift in the supply and demand economics of the network as well. Whereas primarily we were almost exclusively a retail driven speculative asset, now we're seeing institutions accumulating at a very rapid rate. And tie that in with the illquidity of Bitcoin. there's over 95% that will ever exist already in circulation. And the fact that people are seemingly more and more willing to hold on to Bitcoin indefinitely. I mean, if we look at the long-term holder supply of Bitcoin, it's close to around 80% is, you know, pretty much illquid, not being easily and and willingly sold by these people with a long-term time frame horizon. And if we look at the institutions through the ETFs from the peak to the recent lows we set at 60K, I think many people were looking to the institutions and thinking are they going to capitulate like retail did? But we saw less than a 13% outflow from these ETF holdings. So these new participants clearly also have a very long-term time frame horizon. And as Bitcoin is getting more ill liquid as we're starting to show some relative strength versus these other assets over the past few weeks and months, I think Bitcoin potentially has already bottomed, we've seen some capitulation signals, and at that point, if we can start breaking into some new higher highs and higher lows from where we are today, then at least in my mind, that would kind of solidify that the harming event, which primarily drove the four-year cycles previously, is probably past us. and maybe we see Bitcoin trade more like the S&P 500 with these passive lows coming in and a more gentle slow grind to the upside with diminished volatility. >> Thank you, Matt. So, let's look at a couple of um just definitions of terms and what what what has actually happened to date. Um, so far the four-year cycle has been impressively predictive of uh future behavior, much more so than some of the stock market things like, you know, sell in May and go away, which I followed for many years. And it it uh saved my butt in the 20089 crisis because I'd sold in May. I was all cash going into the uh great financial uh crisis um and the Santa Claus rally and and things like that. Um, so you know, we first of all, the four-year cycle has never been four years, right? It's 210,000 blocks. And the closest one to being a four-year cycle, because it was exactly four years, every having would be on January 3rd. And the closest one that we had to four years was the was the first having that was in late November. So it was about, you know, almost 47 months. And then the very next one was the shortest cycle because it went all the way back to July. And a lot of that was because of the disruption uh in mining that happened with China, you know, really cracking down on miners. Uh we've been getting a little bit uh closer to to uh 48 months. Um you know, for the last couple cycles, it's been about 47 and we're now predicting it'll be about 47. Uh the current estimate of when the 210,000th block of the cycle is going to hit is going to be sometime in late March of 2028. So um you know and what's interesting is you know as I say in my book I believe it was not an accident. I think it was intentional that Satoshi put at least the first you know few havingss in the presidential election year because that's really where a lot of other economic cycles revolve around. And so you end up having I I call them the four seasons of Bitcoin in my book. Uh Bitcoin spring starts the day of the having. Uh having to having it's interesting always goes up so far, right? And and Satoshi had said that as long as the amount of new money coming into the ecosystem is greater than the percentage of new coins uh coming in, uh you know, it has to go up. And sure enough, it's math. um first having $12, second having 670, third having 8,700, fourth having 63,900. Everything happens in between. All the wild swings are all fear and greed. And I identified back in 2015, and so far it's been very consistent. Four behaviors between each having that are not based on math or based on fear and greed. Bitcoin spring starts with a having. Miners all of a sudden go from being slightly profitable to massively unprofitable. You think the price would drop, it doesn't. It stays flat because for every minor selling, somebody else has said, "Oh, it's going to be up by the next having." Bitcoin summer happens the day of the first new high after the having. And that's parabolic growth. It's a great time to buy Bitcoin that first day on a daily irr. You make all your money if you're not going to hodddle. I'm going to try to trade the first day and the last day of predicting it of Bitcoin fall which Bitcoin fall starts the day of the bubble popping and it ends with capitulation the final drop that you don't come bouncing back from and then interesting the longest season is winter. Spring has been about four to seven months so far getting a little bit longer each time. Summer has been 9 to 11 months getting a little longer each time. Fall interesting enough has been exactly around a year. Um it was a it's actually it hasn't varied much. It was a year and a couple weeks in in the 2026 cycle. It was a year minus three days in the 2017 18 bull market. Um and then it was um uh one year to the date in 21 to 22. November 10th bubble popped. November 10th a year later FTX. And so it's been interesting to me that all the bad news happens right at the time that it's supposed to and it ends up getting uh you know just shaking the market out. We've not really had that much bad news so far in this um Bitcoin fall. And you know if you believe the people who say we're in a new bull market, it'll be the first time that we had one that was only four months and that had kind of a nice bounce back from it. But when we went down to 80 from the from 1010 and we went down to 60 in February. Both times we had FTX levels of fear and now we're back up to like you know about neutral behavior. I believe we're still going to go lower. I believe we're going to hit the bottom around October. Um and that we will have one more drop to like massive fear and greed and it'll get us down you know to somewhere between 40 and 60. I think some of the factors that we've been talking about already with like you know institutions which by the way uh it's still retail with ETFs. The only one that's really kind of institutionally driven uh dynamic is like the DATs because the ones that are saying we're going to keep Bitcoin forever like Sailor that's permanent capital. Um so I'd like everyone's opinion on two things. Number one, when do you see the bottom hitting for this cycle? Do you think it already has hit? And what do you think the main factors that are different this cycle to uh change where this bottom is going to be in the next top? >> Thank you. I think I think definitely we've uh we've hit the bottom for for Bitcoin and the overall market in general. I think there are a lot of things that are different uh over the last two to three years that weren't prevalent before. I think Bitcoin is being heavily financialized now. It's not just a spot purchase anymore. It's being wrapped. It's being lent. It's being collaterized. And we've financialized it to the point where it does uh change the dynamics of its supply and the velocity of width of which it uh moves up and down as well. And you know that has I feel that has uh a few different implications. I think there that allows for more liquidity. It allows for more uh leverage and supply is no longer just based off of uh quote unquote coin coins that are mined. Um I also don't think I think people generally get the wrong impression with the word super cycle and they relate that to price just going up constantly. I don't think that's the case. I think I think we don't have full wipeouts. We don't have multi-year winters anymore, but we do have sharp, faster, shallow corrections and we will uh we will continue to go higher. >> Yeah. So, I I think um it's I'm not as absolute. I think uh the there is still fair chance that the bottom is not in. Um uh I I I mean we had a the February crash that we had was was very similar to the June bottom of if you look at onchain data the June bottom of the previous uh bare market. So in June of 2022 and um that was this the Celsius crash by the way and and then we still saw that later on in November that year we had uh the FDX crash and so that was another leg down. Now what is different this cycle is that indeed we have a lot of like structural flows um you know we had them during the the bull market and now in the bare as well we see them uh you know through ways like stretch um they're incredible demand for for bitcoin and so I think that um that has a dampening effect on the downside and so so we're currently actually at uh you know 79k um or or 77k but the the short-term holder cost base is the average p purchase price of short-term holders in the market is around 79K and um historically you know we always rejected uh off that and continue to bear for for another couple of months and um usually we had another leg down now this time I'm not as convinced that we will have another leg down I think there's a high probability we we will again reject off the short-term holder cost basis and continue to have like you know sideways chop price action and potentially I mean if there is a catalyst like I I don't know It could be through ways of the war and still escalating and and so forth. We could have another leg down and we could touch maybe 50k like historically you can you see actually that Bitcoin always in the in the in the bare market bottoms below the realized price. The realized price is the average purchase price of all investors in in Bitcoin. And currently that price is at 54K. And so historically like if we would continue the 4year cycle we would actually you know at least see a crash below that price. Uh now as I said there is a there's a lot of institutional demand and so this time there is a dampening effect and and and so maybe this time is different but uh you know I'm I'm rather careful. So I I I think there's there's uh two ways we we could have uh we could still touch upon below 54k slightly before we actually bought them and that would happen within the next 6 months. And I think that is the the conver the most conservative take you can have uh and and probably the best way and the most prudent way that that think of uh of how Bitcoin will move forward. And if we're lucky we we we don't get there and uh you know we bought them more early and and uh and we have less uh uh less of this low consolidation phase left uh and and we continue to move up from there. >> So I just I just want to update the price though at 75,79. >> All right. All right. Conference dump is real. So I I just wanted to say uh rather than working in binary, yes, we have bombed on no we haven't like a true analyst who likes to get out of jail free card. I I like to think more probabilistically. And in my mind, I think the chances that we have bottomed are greater than 50%. And if we haven't and we're talking 54k, I mean, no one looks at the previous cycle and says, well, look at this guy bought at 20k. He didn't buy the exact bomb at 15k. I mean the asymmetric opportunity it accumulating in this bottoming range you don't have to nail the exact bottom as long as you can strategically dollar cost average in with slightly more size around these levels then again I think the riskreward is very favorable at these levels and in terms of do I think that you know we potentially bottom out at a different date based on the four-year cycle as we've said before I think previously that was more of a fundamentally driven event due to the h havinging and the structure of the market has changed significantly now and I feel it's somewhat arbitrary to focus on, you know, the day of the year in which Bitcoin may or may not do something. Previously, we have bottomed out on a more predictable timeframe horizon, but that also coincided with mass onchain capitulation, extreme fear in the derivatives markets. And these are the type of signals that we are seeing at these points. So for me, I'm not looking at what day of the year we are. I'm looking at what people actually doing, what's happening onchain, who's buying and who's selling. And for me, like Root said, that there could be a catalyst that takes us to to new lows. We all know one tweet from a certain someone in the White House can change things very drastically very very quickly. But ultimately looking at these tools, I think, as I said previously, there's at least a greater probability that we have bombed than we haven't. Although I will say there's there's two types of capitulation. Everyone immediately focuses on the price based capitulation. How low did we go? What was the draw down percentage? But there's also very much a timebased capitulation in that we don't just see a huge percentage draw down. We see a long drawn out bottom forming process which just bores people. We see this low volatility. We see this chopping consolidation and people just generally get bored and leave the asset. But if that is at a fairly stable price, whether that's 60 to $70,000, it allows investor mindsets to adjust to this new almost baseline foundation price. It allows new capital to start flowing in and people just getting used to the fact that you know Bitcoin may have had this draw down but at a 50% pullback you know you're getting buy one get one free sats compared to a few months ago and I think institutional investors are more attuned to this opportunity and for me as I said previously at at these levels I think it would be reckless to wait for a day on the calendar and not accumulate when when we're seeing such opportunities in the market. Welcome to predict. The world is a market. Everything is a market. Every headline moves the line. Every moment is your market. Call the moves. Bet on your instinct, your prediction, your edge. Dual bits. Predict where everything is a market. Okay, so we're all pretty close to agreement on uh the price of this bottom because if it already happened then it was 60 and um you know I think it can go down to 40 but I would agree that some of the dampening effects that you get from uh you know what STRC alone is doing and uh I think it comes down to we go into the 40s if we have another FTX like moment um I think that we still have a very tender environment for adapting to some kind of because look, if you're talking about what happened on 1010, you know, there's a number of explanations. It wasn't just a tweet. It was Binance, you know, starting to sell like crazy and auto deleveraging market makers and uh and when you had structured selling for 5 days went all the way down to 80, but it was another week it might go down to 60. And then uh in February, the closest explanation I've heard is uh that a Hong Kong uh hedge fund that was uh overleveraged on IBIT. And uh you know, if if something that small that was not exactly FTX, um if something that small can like wipe out the remaining uh short-term holders, then we still have some uh uh some danger ahead. So, um, now that we're sort of in the 50 to 60 range for where the bottom is or was or will be, um, we got about five minutes left. So, let's talk about where we think the high at the top of this next 28 to to 32 cycle will be. Um, and then what's it going to be like uh, four years after that. So, I'm not even going out 10 years, just you know, three years and seven years. Uh my projection um I believe that we have a solid shot of having um a sufficient um supply shock next time. I think my worst case is that we go up to about 180 and my best case we could go with a super cycle uh you know shock up to about 450 to 480. I don't think we'll hit 500. four years after that, we have a solid shot at getting, you know, in the 8 900,000 range at the top or we may have, you know, just, you know, still be trying to get up to half a million. Thoughts from the rest of the panel? >> Yeah, I agree. I think at the very minimum, what I'm looking for, uh, in terms of price action is 175 and over the next, uh, 4 to 8 years more towards 4 450k. And um you know I think I think we've seen uh we've seen Bitcoin kind of move through three narratives over time. Uh we've seen it move through a narrative of it just being a speculative asset. We've seen it move through uh as a store of value and now we're seeing it used as collateral and more of a narrative towards macro liquidity. And I think super cycle for me just means more of an aggressive transition towards that phase three. >> Yeah, you're already assuming a bit that um that the four-ear cycle continues in a way like with those predictions. I think it's it's very far out to to to talk about prediction in in four or seven years. Um I um I I I would rather say by by next having um I expect to be the bare minimum price to to be at current all-time high levels that we've had. So 126k by the next having which is in less than two years. And I think a fair price for the next having would be well above 200k. Um uh and and and usually around h havingings we're we're more at around fair life uh fair fair price levels not not so much at deep undervalue levels. And so so I think that that is already a reasonable prediction far out enough because the dynamics that are going on are are quite different. Uh as I said we we have demand incredible demand from scratch and so some of these dynamics are changing. Uh as I explained before we we're dealing with um you know like less retail inflows. We have more institutional flows and so the dynamics could change over time of the of the cycle. And and so I'm I'm I'm I'm not super sure on on on what we will what will be the next cycle. top. Um I'm I'm not so sure of a supply shock either. Uh you were talking about a supply shock. Uh I think we'll um you know the market is big and liquid enough. Um so I think we'll we're more likely to move up more gradual and and still uh face resistance at several levels. Most of the supply of Bitcoin um has been mined and uh was in the hands of of uh early holders um uh like OGs and Cyber Punks. So, so they bought at at at levels, you know, at at $10, $100, $1,000, $10,000 who are actually, you know, the 100k psychological level was a uh was a level uh that uh that they were really willing to part with uh with with some of their Bitcoin. It's a it's a level that we've been basically waiting for for for over two cycles. You know, we have the meme laser ray uh uh until 100k and so it's the 100k level has been talked about a long time. And so I think there's still some fair resistance to move through. Uh and I I also think um you know the market is big enough and and we will continue with some sell pressure even at higher levels. But it is true uh that that we have seen incredible institutional adoption. If you think like currently 20 million bitcoin are in circulation um uh only uh the institutional adoption if you think of strategy and ETFs uh that is nearly 2 million bitcoin that has been acquired uh over the last years. And so obviously you know there was a lot of coins in the hands of of these OGs who have been selling heavily uh and also were willing uh to take profit at that 100k level. And I think the the like the 100k top or the 126k top uh I think the reason we got the the the February crash was also a bit of like the realization that uh that that the that the actual top was in because before with um with the November 10th I think it was uh crash where we had like a heavy like the the highest liquidations ever in crypto uh which actually affected the crypto market much more than Bitcoin. uh that was like a bitcoin or or a cryptospecific event. But I think um this cycle we have been dealing much more with uh w with actual um uh um uh we we have been dealing with um with much more uh global uh macro conflict rather than uh you know idiosyncratic events regarding Bitcoin. And so I think uh yeah, we're we're dealing with with with very very different time this time and and so I'm not willing to predict like that far out. >> Uh we're out of time so I'll be very quick. >> We're out of time because uh he can't see the clock. But >> I will say if we're doing price predictions, you have to keep in mind dollars tomorrow worth less than dollars today. So measuring against something that's debasing uh doesn't really give us the best idea of the relative purchasing power. Like I said previously, we made an all-time high in 2025, but it certainly didn't feel like it. So, I think we need to be targeting comparable assets. So, approaching the market cap of silver, which would be somewhere around three to four trillion dollars, would be a 2x from the previous all-time high, about a quarter of a million dollars. But again, that quarter of a million dollars isn't buying you as much as today's quarter of a million dollars. And then that's everything. >> Okay. Thank you. And um we'll see you guys in Nashville next year. And uh we'll be around for a couple minutes for questions. Every year this community comes together to celebrate, to debate, to build what comes next. And every year the stage gets bigger. Sound money center stage. So, where do you go to celebrate the next chapter in Bitcoin history? You come home. Nashville, July 2027.