Bitcoin dropped below $60,000 this week, but 21Shares maintains that the asset has not deviated from its four-year cycle pattern. The prediction itself is straightforward: Bitcoin tends to rally hard after each halving event, then correct sharply roughly four years later. The most recent halving occurred in April 2024, which would place a potential cycle peak sometime around 2028.
21Shares' point is that current weakness, while sharp, does not invalidate the pattern's historical hold. Bitcoin has experienced multiple boom-bust episodes tied to the halving schedule over nearly 15 years. The mechanism is mechanical: every 210,000 blocks (roughly four years), the mining reward halves, reducing the rate at which new coins enter circulation. In theory, that supply squeeze can trigger price rallies in the months following the event.
What 21Shares is not claiming is that Bitcoin will necessarily obey the cycle this time around. The statement is narrower: the cycle has not yet broken. That leaves room for the pattern to hold, weaken gradually, or snap suddenly. Investor behavior, macro conditions, and regulatory shifts all move price independently of the mining schedule. A four-year cycle is a historical tendency, not a law.
The asset manager's framing reflects a broader tension in how Bitcoin holders interpret the halving narrative. Some treat it as a semi-reliable timing signal; others view it as one input among dozens that matter far less than macroeconomic momentum or central bank policy. The current price action, in which Bitcoin has retreated from highs near $75,000 earlier this year, suggests that neither pure cycle believers nor pure skeptics have the full picture.