Crypto’s traditional four-year cycle could come to an end because of President Trump’s executive order, according to Bitwise’s chief investment officer Matt Hougan.
In a new note to investors, Hougan says that the four-year cycle appeared to be intact – until Trump came out with the “Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology” executive order.
The executive order directs the United States government to promote stablecoins, end regulatory persecution of digital assets, the evaluation of a national crypto reserve, and other initiatives.
The four-year cycle is based on the idea that crypto follows Bitcoin’s halvings when BTC miners’ rewards are cut in half, which happen roughly every four years and tend to precede upward price movements.
While the four-year cycle is widely accepted as the norm by many crypto investors, Hougan says that the pattern might now be broken due to the implications of Trump’s executive orders, the implications of which could take years to play out.
“The thing I’m wrestling with is that the downstream positive effects of the EO, plus the other changes in Washington, will be felt over the course of years, not months. In the absolute best-case scenario, it will take a year to align on and implement a new regulatory framework for crypto. It will take longer than that for the behemoths on Wall Street to fully orient themselves to crypto’s possibilities.
If it’s not until next year that we feel those impacts, will we really have a new “crypto winter” in 2026? Will investors go into hibernation even though they know we’ve entered a new crypto-enabled world? If BlackRock CEO Larry Fink is calling for $700k Bitcoin, are we really going to see a 70% pullback?
My guess is that we haven’t fully overcome the four-year cycle. Leverage will build up as the bull market builds. Excess will appear. Bad actors will emerge. And at some point, there could be a sharp pullback when the market gets over its skis.
But my guess is that any pullback will be shorter and shallower than in years past. Why? The crypto space has matured; there’s a greater variety of buyers and more value-oriented investors than ever before. I expect volatility, but I’m not sure I’d bet against crypto in 2026.
As for now, it’s full steam ahead. The crypto train is leaving the station.”
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