Bitcoin’s Four-Year Cycle Re-emerges as Halvings and Institutional Demand Reshape the Market
Bitcoin undergoes a halving roughly every four years, creating market cycles by reducing new supply. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved 11 spot ETFs on January 10, 2024, bringing in institutions including BlackRock and Fidelity. Even so, the halving of supply remains an important driver of price fluctuations.
Bitcoin climbed to about $73,737 on March 14, 2024, setting a record high before a halving for the first time. On April 20 that year, the block reward fell from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC. Analysis indicates that the market still peaks about 500 days after a halving. The four-year cycle has not disappeared, but ETF inflows have altered its rhythm.
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The history behind this eventBitcoin’s 500-Day Rule Faces ETF-Era Test
Bitcoin’s “500-day rule,” popularized by Pantera Capital in 2023, holds that investors would have profited by buying roughly 500 days before each halving and selling about 500 days afterward. The halving, hard-coded to occur every 210,000 blocks, cuts miners’ new-coin rewards by half and has historically preceded supply-driven rallies. Pantera said Bitcoin had bottomed an average 477 days before halvings and peaked about 480 days afterward, with the strategy producing returns of as much as 34 times.
CoinDesk reported on Aug. 5 that the clock now points to a late-November 2026 accumulation window, based on the April 20, 2024 halving, and a potential exit in mid-August 2029. AdLunam co-founder Jason Fernandes said miners produce about 450 bitcoin a day, worth $35 million to $40 million, while daily U.S. spot ETF flows ranged from about $100 million to $1 billion in 2024 and 2025. Analysts at Quantum Economics and CMT Digital say Wall Street demand can now overwhelm new supply, testing whether the rule remains a useful signal.
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