Historical data suggests that if the current trend in Bitcoin’s price continues, the cycle’s low point could be reached by the end of the year, and a new high in 2028
The months-long correction in Bitcoin’s price, which has been ongoing since late 2025, is prompting investors to look for historical precedents for a resumption of growth in the leading cryptocurrency. For many years, analysts have relied on the Bitcoin cycle theory, which has been virtually infallible for over a decade.
If the pattern of previous years holds, statistically the bottom of the cycle could be reached by the end of 2026, and a new high could be set in early 2028. But it is possible that, for the first time in Bitcoin’s history, the mechanism that previously reliably triggered bull markets-the cycles between halvings-has broken down.
Halving is an event programmed into Bitcoin’s code that halves the rate of new BTC issuance approximately every four years. The first halving occurred in November 2012, followed by July 2016, then May 2020, and the previous one in April 2024. The next one is expected in 2028. Historically, the cycles between halvings have coincided with price cycles in the crypto market.
The main news of this cycle is that, for the first time in history, Bitcoin ended the year following a halving (2025) with a negative price performance, falling by approximately 6%. By comparison, in 2013, growth following the halving was 5,400%, in 2017—1,300%, and in 2021—60%. Moreover, 2024 broke the pattern of previous cycles—this time, prices exceeded the previous high for the first time before the halving occurred.
Consequently, experts began arguing that the traditional halving-based price structure is breaking down, driven by growing institutional demand for cryptocurrency. For example, such assessments were provided by major players in the crypto market, including the asset management firms Grayscale and Bitwise, experts from the British bank Standard Chartered, Changpeng Zhao, founder of the largest crypto exchange Binance, and Ki Young Ju, head of the analytics firm CryptoQuant.
Experts noted another difference from previous cycles: the absence of systemic internal problems in the crypto market that had characterized previous bear cycles. Analysts at Tiger Research wrote that while crises previously originated within the ecosystem itself—whether it was the Mt. Gox hack in 2014, the bursting of the ICO bubble in 2018, or the bankruptcy of FTX and the collapse of Terra (LUNA) in 2022—the situation today is different.
Institutional demand refers to the trend of companies and individual nations building reserves in cryptocurrency. It also includes demand from U.S. Bitcoin-based exchange-traded funds (ETFs). This trend began to develop rapidly in early 2024 and intensified with the Trump administration coming to power and the shift in crypto industry regulation policy in early 2025.
And although the current cycle is indeed different from previous ones, statistics indicate that Bitcoin’s price movement actually follows the old patterns. For instance, Jan van Eck, CEO of the investment firm VanEck, suggested that analysts are overcomplicating the market situation by describing the cycle pattern as “the price rises for three consecutive years and then falls quite sharply in the fourth year.”
And if we look at 2025, when the price fell by 6%, it is difficult to call it a bear market, considering that from that year’s low, the price rose by nearly 70% to a historic high of $126,200. From this perspective, Jan van Ek classifies 2023, 2024, and 2025 as a bull market, while 2026 is a correction.
What will happen to the price of Bitcoin?
According to data from 2013, the duration of the price decline from the peaks of various cycles to their troughs ranged from 12 to 14 months. And the range of Bitcoin’s price decline from peak to trough was 77–83%. This is confirmed by data from BlackRock, the largest asset manager. Analysts also calculated that it took between 849 and 1,085 days for the price to recover to the level of the previous peak.
By March 24, the Bitcoin price had fallen to $71,300, marking a 43% drop from its October peak. In early February, the price temporarily dipped to $60,000—at that point, losses amounted to nearly 55%.
Other experts also noted the accuracy of these cycles. Back in late 2025, when the price of Bitcoin was around $90,000, Jurien Timmer, head of global macroeconomic analysis at the investment firm Fidelity, noted that Bitcoin “may have completed another four-year cycle.” At the time, he pointed out that the October high “aligns quite well with what one might have expected,” suggesting that in 2026, the price of the leading cryptocurrency would consolidate within the $65,000–$75,000 support zone.
If we apply these statistics to the current situation, the projected bottom of the cycle would fall in October or December 2026—12–14 months after the peak in October 2025. A return to the historical high would only be possible in early 2028.
Thus, until the specified dates arrive or maximum price levels are reached after a time interval different from the statistical one, we will not know whether the cycle theory continues to hold.