Bitcoin price cycle endures, but halving loses influence

Markus Thielen, head of research at 10x Research, said on The Wolf Of All Streets podcast that calling the cycle “broken” misses what has historically mattered most for timing. He pointed to prior market peaks in 2013, 2017 and 2021, saying they clustered in the fourth quarter and lined up more cleanly with election-year uncertainty and policy debates than with the calendar drift of Bitcoin’s halvings.

Such comments land as Bitcoin trades near $89,427 (14 December, 2025), down about 1.1% on the day, after a stretch of choppy price action that has left traders debating whether the post-halving playbook still works.

The immediate “why now” catalyst, in Thielen’s telling, is that political and monetary-policy shifts can move liquidity faster than supply changes do. He argued that investors should pay closer attention to U.S. election timelines, fiscal-policy fights and central-bank signals when trying to gauge when risk appetite could expand – or fade – in crypto.

In the same discussion, Thielen referenced the risk that political uncertainty can reshape expectations for what policy gets passed and how markets price future conditions. “There’s this uncertainty that the sitting president’s party is going to lose a lot of seats,” he said, adding that such shifts can change how investors think about agenda-setting and market implications.

Thielen also argued that the market backdrop has changed because institutions, rather than retail traders, increasingly dominate flows. In that environment, he said, a rate cut does not automatically translate into a sustained crypto rally if overall liquidity remains tight and large allocators stay cautious.

That framing overlaps with this week’s Federal Reserve decision to cut its benchmark rate by a quarter point, setting the target range at 3.5%–3.75%, alongside unusual internal disagreement among policymakers. The Fed’s own statement shows multiple dissents, underscoring that markets are still navigating mixed signals about inflation, growth and how much easing is appropriate.

The “politics and liquidity” lens also sits in the middle of a broader argument inside crypto. Some analysts have said the four-year pattern should weaken as Bitcoin matures and institutional products absorb more capital, while others say recurring liquidity waves still dominate and the halving is often treated as a narrative anchor rather than a mechanical trigger.

For example, BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes has argued that cycles are ultimately about liquidity tightening and loosening rather than a fixed four-year clock, warning that traders who rely too heavily on historical timing can get caught wrong-footed when conditions change.

Bitcoin’s “four-year cycle” shorthand comes from a pattern investors have tracked across multiple market eras: rallies that accelerate into a blow-off phase, followed by steep drawdowns, with turning points often occurring around halvings that cut new Bitcoin issuance roughly every four years. But as the halving dates drift across the calendar – and as macro policy and elections increasingly coincide with major liquidity shifts – research firms such as 10x Research argue the cleaner explanation is not the halving itself, but the political and monetary backdrop that determines how much capital is willing to take risk at a given moment.