Claims that Bitcoin’s four-year cycle is ending reflect changes in market composition rather than changes in the protocol. The halving schedule remains fixed. Issuance still declines at predictable intervals. What has changed is the type of participant interacting with that supply.

Earlier cycles were dominated by marginal buyers and sellers with limited balance sheets. Large price swings followed because liquidity was thin and leverage was unstable. As institutional participation increases, more capital absorbs volatility. Spot ETFs and custodial products introduce steady inflows that smooth short-term dislocations, but they do not alter the underlying scarcity.

This does not mean cycles disappear. It means they express differently. The amplitude may compress, and the timing may drift, but the cause remains the same. New supply continues to fall while demand adjusts. Markets still reprice scarcity over time. They simply do so through deeper pools of capital and longer decision horizons.

Price targets and declarations of cycle death are attempts to simplify a complex adaptive system. Bitcoin does not follow narratives. It follows incentives. When supply is fixed and issuance is known, participants eventually adjust their behaviour around those constraints. Whether volatility is high or low in a given period does not change that process.

Institutional adoption changes who holds Bitcoin and how it trades. It does not change why it exists. The halving remains a structural feature, not a trading signal. As the market matures, focus naturally shifts away from short-term patterns and toward the long-term implications of fixed supply in a system that continues to grow.

Bitcoin does not need cycles to function. It only requires that the rules remain enforceable. The rest is market discovery.

https://www.perplexity.ai/page/wood-says-bitcoin-s-four-year-6r6bPS2WRIqcROxGR0Uopg