Bitcoin’s bear market has been framed by a familiar prism: the traditional four-year cycle. Yet proponents argue that institutional demand, particularly via BTC-focused exchange-traded funds, has muted volatility and may shape the path of prices through the next cycle. In a recent discussion, Anthony Scaramucci, managing partner of SkyBridge, suggested that while the cycle remains visible, its dynamics have been altered by new liquidity channels and changing market participation.

Speaking with Scott Melker on The Wolf of All Streets podcast, Scaramucci described the four-year pattern as “muted” by ETF inflows that have helped cushion sharp swings. “We’re in a four-year cycle, and there were some traditional whales, some OGs, that believe in the four-year cycle, and guess what happens in life when you believe in something? You create a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he said. The implication is that market psychology and the presence of ETFs have tempered the classic boom-bust rhythm that many investors associate with BTC.

Looking ahead, Scaramucci warned that BTC is likely to remain choppy for most of the year, with a renewed bull market emerging in the fourth quarter of 2026. He noted that the broader market narrative at the time had shifted away from a straightforward ascent toward a more nuanced trajectory, where macro and policy factors would matter just as much as on-chain signals.

The conversation also touched on the expectations that had circulated in late 2024 and early 2025. Market participants, including Scaramucci, had anticipated BTC could surge toward around $150,000 in 2025, driven by broad political momentum and regulatory openness in the United States. That consensus was upended by a sharp October downturn that pulled BTC from a prior peak to a much lower range, underscoring how quickly sentiment can swing in crypto markets.

History has repeatedly shown that price movements often defy prevailing sentiment. Scaramucci pointed to the early 2023 period, when BTC’s price action moved contrary to bright-eyed forecasts in the wake of the FTX collapse in November 2022. After a period of disinterest and malaise, the market reversed into a new upcycle, illustrating how catalysts can reset the mood even when the broader narrative appears unfavorable.

Key takeaways

• The four-year cycle remains a reference framework for BTC, but ETF inflows have muted its volatility and potentially altered how the cycle plays out.
• BTC is expected to experience choppy trading through much of this year, with the next major leg higher anticipated in the fourth quarter of 2026.
• Market expectations for a 2025 surge to around $150,000 were fueled by pro-crypto policy signals and regulatory warming, but an October crash shattered that consensus.
• Historical reactions show BTC can rebound after episodes of apathy or negative catalysts, reinforcing the idea that macro shocks and sentiment swings remain powerful drivers.
• Geopolitical developments and stock-market dynamics can influence BTC through correlations with risk assets, underscoring the need to monitor macro risk sentiment alongside on-chain activity.

The cycle, ETFs, and the evolving market backdrop

In the eyes of Scaramucci, the presence of BTC-focused exchange-traded funds has changed the game. ETFs offer a new, regulated channel through which institutional players can gain exposure, potentially dampening sharp drawdowns and tempering the kind of volatile spikes that once defined BTC cycles. This shift does not erase the cycle’s specter, but it reframes it—turning a potentially binary up- or down-market into a more nuanced, information-rich environment in which policy signals and fund flows matter as much as supply-demand fundamentals.

That framing sits alongside long-standing debates within the crypto industry about whether the four-year cycle remains intact. While some observers point to deviations in late 2025 or 2026, others, including Scaramucci, argue that the cycle still offers a useful heuristic for investors trying to gauge risk, duration, and potential turning points. The market’s sensitivity to events such as regulatory announcements, ETF inflows, or major macro shocks continues to complicate any simple forecast.

From peak to pause: how catalysts have shifted the narrative

The historical arc cited by Scaramucci stretches from BTC’s all-time run toward lofty levels to the subsequent retrenchment that has colored investor psychology for years. The narrative notes that BTC once traded near the upper stratosphere—around a $126,000 range in prior cycles—before the October pullback. From there, the price retraced to the $60,000 area, highlighting how quickly sentiment can reverse and the importance of liquidity and risk appetite in determining the price path.

Beyond these cycles, the market’s reaction to external shocks—such as the FTX collapse in late 2022—has underscored a pattern: even after periods of disillusionment, bitcoin has demonstrated resilience, often resuming an uptrend when investor interest returns and liquidity improves. The early months of 2023, in particular, showed that upside moves can unfold despite a broader backdrop of skepticism or unfavorable headlines.

Another facet of the discussion centers on whether 2025 and 2026 would deliver a fresh bull phase. While the consensus among several participants had anticipated a robust climb in 2025, the trajectory was interrupted by the October downturn and broader risk-off dynamics. The question remains whether the market will reassert its longer-term cycle or whether a new regime—shaped by macro policy, regulatory clarity, and global liquidity—will redefine BTC’s pace and scale.

Geopolitics, risk sentiment, and BTC’s market correlations

Macro shocks have always tested BTC’s claimed role as a hedge or diversifier. The recent wave of geopolitical tension and global risk-off periods have at times coincided with renewed pressure on risk assets, and BTC has not been immune. In the most recent turn, BTC dipped below a key psychological level in the wake of intensifying geopolitical events. At the same time, traditional stock indices have faced renewed selling pressure; the S&P 500 fell around 1.3% as the week closed, dipping below a widely watched moving average and highlighting a possible shift in the correlation between BTC and mainstream markets.

Analysts have warned that if BTC continues to exhibit a sustained positive correlation with equities, its downside could be more pronounced in risk-off environments—potentially amplifying losses in a scenario where macro catalysts favor traditional assets. Yet the crypto market has shown episodic decoupling at different points in history, illustrating that the relationship is not fixed and can diverge as new liquidity channels and market participants come into play.

The ongoing debate about Bitcoin’s cycle, and whether it remains a reliable compass for pricing, continues to draw attention from investors and researchers. Some industry voices argue that structural shifts—such as increasing institutional participation, evolving derivatives markets, and tighter regulation—could render the old four-year narrative less predictive than it once was. Others maintain that the cycle still captures a collective behavior pattern—cyclical expectations that influence trading and risk management, even if the visible price path changes in response to external shocks.

For readers seeking a synthesis, it’s not simply a question of whether the cycle endures, but how its cues interact with a broader market fabric that includes policy developments, ETF demand, and macro risk appetite. The interplay among these factors will likely determine how BTC navigates the remainder of this decade.

Longer-form reflections on the cycle’s fate have appeared in industry circles, including discussions in crypto-focused media that weigh the structural shifts against historical precedent. The tension between a legacy four-year rhythm and new market realities remains a core theme for traders and builders alike, as they assess timing, risk controls, and capitalization strategies in a landscape defined by rapid change and evolving incentives.

As the community weighs these signals, investors should stay alert to ETF flow data, central-bank signals, and regulatory developments that could reshape the calculus of risk and reward. The next few quarters will be telling in terms of whether BTC can establish a fresh breakout or whether the cycle will again be interrupted by macro or policy-driven shocks.

Looking ahead, observers will be watching how the market absorbs geopolitical risks, how the S&P 500 and other risk assets respond to policy news, and how BTC trades as liquidity conditions shift. The implications extend beyond price alone: they touch on institutional adoption, derivative markets, and the broader narrative around crypto’s role in diversified portfolios.

For now, the path remains uncertain but informed by a set of recognizable patterns and new inflows. The pace of ETF participation, the resilience of risk sentiment, and the cadence of regulatory clarity will help determine whether BTC’s next major leg higher lies in late 2026 or in a broader, more gradual re-acceleration beyond that horizon.

Readers should watch for how ETF allocations evolve and whether macro catalysts—such as policy shifts or geopolitical developments—alter the balance of risk and return in the coming months. The question of whether Bitcoin’s four-year rhythm endures or evolves is unlikely to be settled in the near term, but the signals from fund flows, price action, and policy readiness will continue to shape market expectations.

As platforms such as Polymarket gain mainstream visibility during U.S. election cycles and major geopolitical events, their prices are increasingly cited as real-time signals of truth. The pitch is seductive: let people put money behind beliefs, and the market will converge on reality faster than polls or pundits. But that promise collapses when a contract creates a financial incentive for someone to change the very outcome it claims to measure.

The problem is not volatility. It is design.

When a forecast becomes a plan

The most extreme example is the assassination market, a contract that pays if a named individual dies by a certain date. Most major platforms do not list anything so explicit. They do not have to. The vulnerability does not require a literal bounty.

It only requires an outcome that a single actor can realistically influence.

Consider a sports-adjacent case: a prop market on whether there will be a pitch invasion during the Super Bowl. A trader takes a large position on “yes,” then runs onto the field. It is not hypothetical. It has happened. That is not a prediction. It is execution.

The same logic extends well beyond sports. Any market that can be resolved by one person taking one action, filing one document, placing one call, triggering one disruption or staging one stunt embeds an incentive to interfere. The contract becomes a script. The trader becomes the author.

In those cases, the platform is not aggregating dispersed information about the world. It is pricing the cost of manipulating it.

Political and event markets carry a higher risk

This vulnerability is not evenly distributed across the prediction universe. It concentrates on thinly traded, event-based or ambiguously resolved contracts. Political and cultural markets are especially exposed because they often hinge on discrete milestones that can be nudged at relatively low cost.

A rumor can be seeded. A minor official can be pressured. A statement can be staged. A chaotic but contained incident can be manufactured. Even when no one follows through, the mere existence of a payout changes incentives.

Retail traders understand this instinctively. They know a market can be correct for the wrong reasons. If participants begin to suspect that outcomes are being engineered, or that thin liquidity allows whales to push prices for narrative effect, the platform stops being a credibility engine and starts looking like a casino with a news overlay.

Trust erodes quietly, then all at once. No serious capital operates in markets where outcomes can be cheaply forced.

“All markets are manipulable” misses the point

The standard defense is that manipulation exists everywhere. Match fixing happens in sports. Insider trading happens in equities. No market is pure.

That confuses possibility with feasibility.

The real question is whether a single participant can realistically manipulate the outcome they are betting on. In professional sports, results depend on dozens of actors under intense scrutiny. Manipulation is possible but costly and distributed.

In a thin event contract tied to a minor trigger, one determined actor may be enough. If the cost of interference is lower than the potential payout, the platform has created a perverse incentive loop.

Discouraging manipulation is not the same as designing against it.

Sports as a structural template

Sports markets are not morally superior. They are structurally harder to corrupt at the individual level. High visibility, layered governance, and complex multi-actor outcomes raise the cost of forcing a result.

That structure should be the template.

It is product integrity

Prediction platforms that want long-term retail trust and eventual institutional respect need a bright-line rule: do not list markets whose outcomes can be cheaply forced by a single participant, and do not list contracts that function as bounties on harm.

If a contract’s payout can reasonably finance the action required to satisfy it, the design is flawed. If resolution depends on ambiguous or easily staged events, the listing should not exist. Engagement metrics are not a substitute for credibility.

The first scandal will define the category

As prediction markets gain visibility in politics and geopolitics, the risks are no longer abstract. The first credible allegation that a contract was based on non-public information, or that an outcome was directly engineered for profit, will not be treated as an isolated incident. It will be framed as proof that these platforms monetize interference with real-world events.

That framing matters. Institutional allocators will not deploy capital into venues where the informational edge may be classified. Skeptical lawmakers will not parse the difference between open-source signal aggregation and private advantage. They will regulate the category as a whole.

The choice is simple. Either platforms impose listing standards that exclude easily enforceable or easily exploitable contracts, or those standards will be imposed externally.

Prediction markets claim to surface the truth. To do that, they must ensure their contracts measure the world rather than reward those who try to rewrite it.

If they fail to draw that line themselves, someone else will draw it for them.

The current Bitcoin (BTC) bear market can be explained by the four-year cycle and long-term BTC holders selling at the $100,000 psychological level, according to Anthony Scaramucci, managing partner of the SkyBridge investment firm.

Bitcoin’s four-year market cycle has been “muted” by institutional investors and inflows from BTC exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that have cushioned volatility, Scaramucci said, but the altered market dynamics have not fully erased BTC’s traditional cycles. He said:

“We’re in a four-year cycle, and there were some traditional whales, some OG’s, that believe in the four-year cycle, and guess what happens in life when you believe in something? You create a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

BTC will continue to see choppy price action for most of the year, until the fourth quarter of 2026, when prices will start to rise again in a new bull market cycle, he said.

Scaramucci said that market participants, including himself, were widely expecting BTC to climb to $150,000 in 2025, driven by US President Donald Trump’s pro-crypto agenda and US regulators warming up to the digital asset industry.

However, the October market crash, which dragged BTC down from an all-time high of about $126,000 to a low of $60,000, completely shattered the widely held consensus.

Markets often move in opposite ways to the prevailing investor sentiment, Scaramucci said, citing Bitcoin’s price action in the early months of 2023, following the November 2022 collapse of the FTX exchange, as an example. 

“It was at a period of great disinterest and great apathy that the bull market started again,” he said, adding that the current BTC bear market is a “garden variety” correction in line with previous downturns.

To be sure, crypto industry executives, analysts, and market participants continue to debate whether Bitcoin’s four-year cycle theory is still valid after BTC ended 2025 in the red or if changing market dynamics have permanently altered how the price of BTC moves. 

Related: Bitcoin price aims to hold $70K amid rising inflation concerns

Could Iran war and geopolitical turmoil bring BTC more pain?

The price of BTC fell below $69,000 on Saturday as the war in Iran entered its third week, jolting risk assets across the board. 

Stock market investors saw the S&P 500 index extend its decline on Friday, dropping by about 1.3%. A day earlier the gauge closed below its 200-day moving average, a key technical indicator closely watched to assess the overall trend of equities markets, for the first time in 10 months.

Some analysts now forecast a potential 50% drop in BTC’s price in 2026 if it continues to exhibit a positive correlation with the S&P 500 index.

Magazine: The debate over Bitcoin’s four-year cycle is over: Benjamin Cowen