Morgan Stanley warns: Bitcoin enters a four-year cycle harvesting period, historical data confirms the risk of a pullback!
Bitcoin is entering the 'harvesting phase' of its four-year cycle, and investors need to cash out at highs and be wary of the next downward trend! This warning is not unfounded but is highly consistent with Bitcoin's halving mechanism cycle rule that has been in place for 15 years.
Looking back at three complete bull and bear cycles, Bitcoin has always followed the iron rule of 'peaking 12-18 months after halving, followed by a deep pullback':
• First cycle (2012 halving): Peaked at $1163 in December 2013, followed by an 87% crash to $152
• Second cycle (2016 halving): Reached a high of $19783 in December 2017, with a subsequent decline of 84% to $3122
• Third cycle (2020 halving): Soared to a peak of $69044 in November 2021, then corrected 73% to $18900.
The increases in the first three bull markets were 581 times, 129 times, and 17 times respectively, while after the fourth halving in April 2024, the current increase from the 2022 low of $15500 is only 6 times, with the growth rate significantly narrowing, showing characteristics of the end of the cycle.
Current market pullback signals resonate with historical patterns: this week Bitcoin fell below the key support level of $99,000, and this point falls around 17 months after the fourth halving—just within the 'peak window' of the previous three cycles. More critically, the three major engines of market liquidity have all peaked: stablecoins, ETFs, and digital asset treasury increments are lackluster, and incremental funds are gradually disappearing, which completely aligns with the characteristics of the end of a bull market historically—'volume contraction, buying power exhaustion'.
However, it is worth noting that this cycle has structural differences: institutions have not yet withdrawn and continue to view Bitcoin as 'digital gold' and a core asset for inflation hedging. The total assets of U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs have exceeded $137 billion, and Ethereum ETFs have also reached $22.4 billion. $BTC North American institutions currently hold a total amount of Bitcoin that has reached 35% of its circulating supply, and their long-term allocation demand has smoothed short-term volatility, resulting in a more moderate pullback in this bull market (the maximum pullback so far is only 22%), but this has not changed the underlying logic of the downward cycle.
Morgan Stanley's implications are clear: historical data has sounded the alarm, this market may not yet be completely over, but the 'smart money' with keen instincts has already started the harvesting mode.
