As a trader who has been navigating the crypto world for many years, I want to share some real observations about Bitcoin cycles.

Since 2017, Bitcoin has experienced three clear bear markets over these 9 years. The wave from November 2018 to March 2019 saw a decline of about 81% over approximately 150 days. After that, it consolidated for nearly a year, with a bottom at around $3,000 during a crash, but then fully recovered, with a decline of about 70%. Later, another cycle saw a drop from $69,000 to $16,000, also roughly a 72% decline, with consolidation lasting nearly a year.

Carefully analyzing these historical data, a clear pattern emerges — each maximum decline is roughly around 70%, and the entire bear market cycle typically lasts about a year.

The current question is, with the deep involvement of listed companies and large institutions like BlackRock and MicroStrategy in 2026, can Bitcoin still follow the traditional bull and bear cycles? There are two mainstream views in the community. One believes Bitcoin has entered a super volatility era, fully following the US stock market trends, becoming a side character to US stocks. The other insists that the halving cycle remains valid, and Bitcoin’s 4-year bull and bear cycles have not changed.

Based on these two different judgments, trading strategies are completely different. If you lean toward the first view, believing that super volatility is the new normal, then you should abandon traditional bull and bear thinking and adopt a U-based strategy — that is, holding USDT long-term, and making profits through short-term and medium-term trading. If you still believe in the cycle theory, then calculate based on roughly 70% of the historical maximum decline, with the lowest point around 42,000. However, with deep institutional involvement today, this decline may not be as thorough as before.