Every Bitcoin bull run has been smaller than the last.
539x → 112x → 21x → 7.9x, from each cycle's low to the next top.
I've followed Bitcoin's four-year cycle for years. Going into this one, I'm more cautious. Here's why, chart by chart. 🧵
Nobody had to buy English from the first speakers. Joining a language network costs nothing and enriches the newcomer. Joining Bitcoin’s network means paying whoever got there first. If money is just a ledger, why are we buying the entries?
The details that didn't fit here are in the full post: why I sell 35 months after the low instead of at the first top (it beat that in every cycle), why I'm spreading the buys, and the caveats.
docsulo.com/why-im-cautious-…
Worst planned case: about -27%. Best of these scenarios: about +92% after tax.
That's a long way from the 10x and 100x cycles of the past. There may be one more worthwhile cycle. Worth a small bet, not a big one.
What am I doing? Still playing, but smaller, with rules set in advance:
• 25% in Nov, 25% in Dec, the rest spread over Jan–Jun 2027
• Each buy sold 30 months later, or 35 months after the low if sooner
• A daily close below the cycle low sells everything
Not financial advice.
And altcoin season didn't show up.
Buy the 100 largest coins in Nov 2018, hold 30 months: 10 of 46 beat Bitcoin. Same test from Nov 2022: 1 of 100.
The median altcoin lost money.
Meanwhile, fewer people use it.
Bitcoin addresses active each day (yearly average) peaked around 1.04 million in 2021. Today: 643,000. That's 38% lower, and below the end-2017 level at a price about 6 times higher.
Like gold, it's becoming something held in storage, not spent.
And Bitcoin now falls when stocks fall.
Correlation of weekly moves with the S&P 500: 0.05 from 2014 to 2019. 0.26 since 2020, peaking above 0.5 in 2022 and again in 2026.
The four-year cycle has never been tested by a long recession. That's my biggest worry.
Bitcoin has only ever known a rising stock market.
1950 to 2009: 9 stock market falls of 20% or more, typically 17 months from high to low. Since March 2009: 2, both short.
A long, grinding stock bear market hasn't happened in 17 years.
If June's $58,525 was the low and the next run shrinks the way past runs did, the next top lands around 88k, 109k or 173k.
Two of those are below the last top ($124,824). That has never happened in Bitcoin's history.
A rough illustration, not a forecast.
The calendar says it's too early.
Real breakouts came 14 to 18 months after the top. Before the 10-month mark, every breakout was a trap: Bitcoin fell another 73% after 2014's and 59% after 2018's.
This one came at 10 months, the earliest that has ever counted.
Is the bottom already in? My price signal says yes.
The breakout bar: wait 10 months after the all-time high, then look for the first green month that closes above the high of the last red month.
It fired in August at $78,549, exactly 10 months after the Oct 2025 top.
Lined up from their lows, the last three cycles look alike for two years. The difference is the final year: 112x went vertical, 21x had a smaller blow-off, 7.9x barely had one.
With the spot ETFs, Bitcoin is becoming a Wall Street product, like gold. Those don't do 100x runs.
The crashes are shrinking too: -93%, -85%, -84%, -77%, and so far -53% this cycle.
Good news for holders. But smaller rallies plus smaller crashes means the cycle is losing the big swings that made timing it worthwhile.
Nobody buys the exact low.
Buying on my signal (the "breakout bar," more below) would have made 74x, 13x, then 5.4x over the last three cycles. A third to 40% less than the bottom-to-top numbers.
Buying at the previous top: 17x, 3.4x, then 1.8x.
