when crypto ried hard back in early 2024 some believe that the market would hit its cycle Top early others believed that the crypto cycle would play out as usual and that the best was yet to come since the start of 2025 crypto has been crashing with some believing that the market will hit its cycle top later than usual others believe that the crypto cycle top is already in and that the worst is yet to come so where are we in the crypto cycle is the top already in or is it yet to come in today's
video we have all the answers my name is Nick and if you hold crypto this is a video you need to watch Until the End let's start with a bit of background to make sure we're all on the same page as most of you will know the crypto Market has historically followed a 4year cycle this 4-year cycle consists of a bull market which lasts roughly 1 to 2 years years and a bare Market that lasts roughly 2 to 3 years what you may not know though is that this 4year cycle is driven by a combination
of crypto factors and macro factors on the crypto side we have the Bitcoin Haring which happens once every four years and this cuts the supply of newly issued BTC in half causing its price to rise assuming demand stays the same of course as btc's price Rises Bitcoin whales will rotate some of their BTC gains into altcoins in search of higher returns uh back in the day most of this rotation involved selling BTC today however most Bitcoin whales will borrow against their BTC to speculate on altcoins so they don't have to sell their precious sets historically
this rotation into altcoins has happened towards the end of the 4E cycle specifically during the most speculative blowoff top phase in the past this blowoff top phase began roughly 12 to 18 months after the Bitcoin Haring for context the most recent Bitcoin Haring was in April 2024 and this means the crypto Market could be entering its most bullish phase of this cycle meanwhile on the macro side the 4-year cycle is driven by the liquidity cycle which is driven by debt refinancing in short individuals and institutions have massive debts that they need to refinance every 4
to 5 years the result is that governments and central banks must inject liquidity I.E money into the financial system to ensure that these debts can be refinanced and this is according to Global liquidity expert Michael Howell Michael's liquidity models suggest that Global liquidity should continue Rising until sometime in late 2025 but Global liquidity does not go up only in the short term liquidity Rises and falls due to various factors such as taxes and Central Bank policy more importantly Michael's research suggests that crypto can lag liquidity by 1 to two months and this explains the recent
crypto dip there was a liquidity drain last Autumn even so this doesn't change the fact that Global liquidity continues to rise in the longer term and should continue Rising until the end of the year in turn assets of all kinds should continue to rise overall between now and the end of the year including crypto in other words the global liquidity cycle appears to be consistent with the 4-year cycle and both suggest the cycle top will come over the next 6 to 8 months if you look at the total market cap of all the cryptos combined
it reflects this fact the total crypto market cap has been going up and to the right since late 2022 when the previous 4-year crypto cycle and 4-year liquidity cycle bottomed combining this chart with the crypto and macro Trends makes it hard to see why so many people are saying this crypto cycle is different but of course it doesn't tell the full story most of the growth in the total crypto market cap has come from Bitcoin and a handful of altcoins as some altcoins have been chopping in the same price range for more than a year
and most have continued to grind lower with many hitting new lows despite the crypto Market supposedly been in its bullish phase this disconnect between Bitcoin and altcoins is arguably why there has been so much debate about where we are in this cycle and if you look in primarily at Bitcoin the cycle basically looks normal but if you look in primarily at altcoins the cycle looks like it's either hasn't started or that it's already over this is precisely why many have started proclaiming that Bitcoin has officially decoupled from the rest of the crypto Market it has
certainly looked that way over the last year or so and it begs the question of whether this trend will continue could this crypto cycle really be different from the others we've seen before we unpack the answers smash that like button if you enjoying this video so far and don't forget to subscribe and ping the notification Bell to make 100% sure you don't miss our next one now to put things into perspective let's look at a few charts this is BTC on the monthly it's clearly still in a bullish uptrend you'll notice we've added a couple
of long-term trend lines and these highlight something that everyone seems to have forgotten BTC chopped sideways for almost an entire year before breaking out a breakout that only really began last November and is still in its early stages now look at the chart of others on the monthly uh for reference others is the total crypto market cap of all altcoins outside of the top 10 buy market cap meaning it essentially tracks most of the midcaps and small caps you'll notice that we've added a couple of long-term trend lines here as well and these are to
underscore the uh elephant in the room most altcoins are still chopping in a Range the same way that Bitcoin did before it broke out but obviously this doesn't show the full picture now some altcoins have been chopping at a lower range others have been chopping at a higher range and a few have been chopping in a middle range soul is a perfect example of an altcoin that's been chopping in a higher range while Soul did hit a new all-time high earlier this year it has otherwise been chopping in the same high price range since last
February eth is a perfect example of an altcoin that's been chopping in a middle range eth has yet to hit an all-time high and has been chopping in the same price range since late 2023 the fact that both soul and eth are at the lower end of their respective ranges is why so many crypto investors are so bearish naturally the most bearish crypto investors are those who have been buying altcoins that have been chopping in the lower range a perfect example in this case is eptos whose price has been chopping in a Range since it
first launched way back back in late 2022 like eth and soul AP is currently at the lower end of this range and some would say it's one of the lucky ones some altcoins have fallen below these ranges still the fact of the matter is that most altcoins have been chopping in a Range over a year if not more and although this has been frustrating for those who have been accumulating and bearish for those who bought towards the top of those ranges the fact of the matter is that altcoins as a whole are not doing anything
out of the ordinary they're just chopping in a Range like BTC and others did before breaking out in 2024 and this begs the question of why some altcoins have been chopping at a higher range While most have been chopping at a lower range and if you watched our recent video about whether altcoins are dead you'll know that the answer appears to be a crypto Market structure specifically as it relates to re investors you see in Prior Cycles you didn't need to complete kyc to use a centralized exchange the result was that it was very easy
for retail investors to access altcoins via these sexes in this cycle however well kyc is everywhere and many crypto Fiat on off ramps have also been limited because of strict regulations at the same time the user experience on crypto wallets and crypto protocols has improved exponentially and those crypto wallets and protocols don't require kyc not only that but many of them have also added crypto Fiat on off ramps lo and behold most retail users seem to have switched to using these wallets and protocols evidenced by the fact that Phantom flipped coinbase in app stores not
long ago logically retail users do not want to use blockchains that are slow and expensive they want to use blockchains that are fast and cheap and one of the few cryptos that meet these criteria is salana lo and behold most of retail crypto speculation we've seen so far has been on salana where mem coins reign supreme until very recently it's a similar story for xrp and other older altcoins they can be bought pretty much everywhere you'll find BTC and never mind the fact that most retail get their crypto info from Tik Tok rather than coin
Market market cap as we stressed in that video though we are on the cusp of seeing significant changes to crypto Market structure specifically as it relates to institutional investors these changes include spot altcoin ETFs the approval of stable coin regulations and Clarity around crypto regulations more broadly which could result in all sorts of trafi and web2 Integrations ranging from tokenized rwas to nft profile pictures and the like there's just one problem and that's that changes to crypto Market structure do not guarantee that liquidity will flow through these new avenues and into these assets and this
was made clear when the spot ethereum ETFs were approved in July 20124 in theory this should have resulted in inflows causing E's price to pump in practice they were next to no inflows and these inflows continue to lag so to reach cap the main reason why there's been such a big disconnect between BTC and most altcoins has been the structure of the crypto market for altcoins which has made it harder for money to flow into altcoins compared to BTC this is changing with spot altcoin ETFs and such but as I just noted changing the structure
of the crypto market for altcoins does not guarantee that money will flow into them if the SEC was to approve spot ETFs for every altcoin tomorrow now chances are that they would see the same lackluster inflows that the spot ethereum ETFs did and this begs a bigger question that nobody seems to be asking and that's why investors would want to invest in altcoins be they retail or institutions the answer is easy the main reason why retail and institutions would want to invest in altcoins is because they want to maximize their returns however this assumes that
investors are willing to invest in Risky assets like altcoins not sure if you've noticed but investors aren't feeling very risk on these days uncertainty around things like Trump's domestic and foreign policies has had investors increasingly sitting on the sidelines especially when it comes to risk assets so even though Global liquidity has been increasing less and less of this liquidity is finding its way down the risk curve simply because investors are being cautious it's like the macro equivalent of crypto Market structure not guaranteeing inflows an increase in liquidity does not guarantee that this money will be
invested that said it seems that a lot of the new liquidity and a lot of the existing liquidity being taken out of other assets is finding its way into US government bonds and that's simply because us bonds are seen as the safest asset among investors the Practical effect of this us Bond buy is that it has caused bond prices to rise and bond yields to fall and this is causing interest rates to fall which happens to be exactly what the Trump Administration wants and that's why some believe that the chaos in the markets is a
means of driving demand for us bonds and you can learn more about the Trump administration's macro plans using this link right over here I digress so to quickly recap even if the structure of the crypto Market changes to make it easier for investors to allocate to altcoins and even if Global liquidity continues to rise this money won't flow into cryptos in size until investors feel comfortable enough to allocate to highrisk assets like altcoins not to burst anyone's bubble uh but this doesn't look like it's going to be happening anytime soon at the time of shooting
the US government continues to be rapidly restructured and tariffs continue to be quickly rolled out and this is all creating uncertainty for investors causing them to sell out of risk assets there are three positives that we can take here however the first is that in the middle of all this uncertainty the Trump Administration and its newly appointed Pro crypto Regulators have been moving quickly to change the structure of the crypto Market which will make it easier for more money to flow into cryptos like altcoins once in investors are feeling more comfortable being able to buy
crypto through banks is one of many examples here the second positive is that these bearish macro conditions could continue to persist for another few months without invalidating the 4-year cycle to refresh your memory altcoins tend to experience their largest gains at the final stage of this cycle which has historically occurred 12 to 18 months after the Bitcoin harving it's easy to forget just how much and how fast altcoins can rally in those final months the third positive is that they don't seem to be any meaningful reasons why the cycle will be different this time on
the crypto side everything seems to be on schedule even though most altcoins didn't rally alongside BTC last Autumn because of the suboptimal market structure for altcoins it appears that this structure will soon be more optimal than ever just in time for the most bullish phase of the cycle everything seems to be on schedule on the macro side as well besides the fact that liquidity is rising many of the macro headwinds that people have cited as the reasons why altcoins have underperformed historically haven't had much of an effect take the 2017 cycle for instance the Fed
was Raising interest rates and reducing its balance sheet but crypto still experienced an epic altcoin season All Things Considered this suggests that the four-year crypto cycle is still intact and that most altcoins could eventually break out of the ranges they've been in and catch up to BTC but as always when prices are going down everyone seems to think the opposite will happen that BTC will follow altcoins to the downside for whatever reason it's almost as if the narrative follows the price and this brings me to the final factor and that's the catalyst the trigger that
will cause incredible amounts of capital to flood into the crypto market and finally complete that traditional 4year crypto cycle we've all been waiting for after all even if the crypto Market structure has been optimized and even if investor sentiment is risk on it's going to take a catalyst for them to want to allocate to crypto in the previous crypto bull market that was micro strategy buying BTC this time around the Catalyst looks like it's going to be a country or a central bank holding BTC as a reserve asset You could argue that this was ultimately
the reason why BTC and a few altcoins rallied so much last year investors were pricing in the possibility of a strategic Bitcoin reserve and an American strategic altcoin Reserve to boot it goes without saying that the expectations around these catalysts were extremely high and the fact that they didn't come right away is a big part of why the crypto Market has struggled so much but just like the 4-year cycle these catalysts still seem to be in the works it looks like they're still coming aside from foreign central banks like the Czech National Bank discussing allocating
a small portion of their reserves to BTC the Trump Administration continues to promise that it will create a crypto Reserve it's wild that Trump reminding everyone about this caused the crypto Market to go crazy recently albeit only for about 48 hours and that craziest part is that everyone seems to have forgotten that Trump's executive order about crypto specified that this strategic crypto Reserve would consist of cryptos that the US government had already seized as part of its enforcement efforts this hasn't stopped everyone from speculating that this Reserve will be funded by taxpayer dollars and would
require an act of Congress and whatever else news flash but the executive order suggests that none of this will be required the US government could merely recognize the cryptos it holds as legitimate assets and vow to hold them indefinitely to some this could come across as a nothing burger and to be honest there's a good chance that it will be thankfully there's no shortage of equally significant catalysts to look forward to and every crypto has its share for Bitcoin it looks like it will be forign central banks investing in BTC for ethereum it looks like
it will be asset managers like Black Rock tokenizing real world assets on its blockchain and mega Banks like JP Morgan launching stable coins on its blockchain both of which would be insanely bullish for eth for xrp it's likely to get a spot ETF and will also be getting an evm compatible side chain this will make it possible for xrp whales to borrow stable coins against their Holdings to speculate on altcoin the same way that BTC and eth Wales can do the result could be a massive increase in onchain crypto liquidity for salana it's also likely
to get a spot ETF and is been used by PayPal for its py USD stable coin payments in case you missed the news PayPal recently announced that it's looking to accelerate the adoption of its py USD stable coin and for those unfamiliar PayPal is the world's largest online payment processor I could keep going down the list but you get the point literally every single crypto has multiple catalysts that could trigger massive inflows into their respective coins and tokens and before you ask whether this means altcoins without ETFs won't see the gains I'll repeat there are
significant secondary effects the more that layer ones like ethereum and salana rally the more liquidity flows into the altcoins on their chains and when when investors see these altcoins pumping they'll look and see what that altcoin is all about if it has a strong narrative a robust team and big backers many of these investors will allocate to these cryptos more importantly they will buy more when these cryptos dip and be less willing to sell when they rally creating the perfect supply and demand conditions for a parabolic rally in quality altcoins like always as tempting as
it is to say that this time is different the fact of the matter is that it doesn't seem to be at the very least it is still too soon to say because the crypto Market hasn't even entered its most bullish phase yet but as always when prices go down for a little too long people will come up with all sorts of reasons to try and understand why and will assume these bearish conditions will continue indefinitely blockworks co-founder Jason yanowitz put it best quote do you genuinely think that the cycle is over do you think Trump
won't do everything in his power to pump this Market do you think proc crypto regulations that we've waited on for several years will have zero impact do you think you sound smart by pontificating about macro and being bearish do you not see every major financial institution and fintech launching crypto products do you not believe well dear viewers do you believe let us know in the comments down below and if you enjoyed that video you'll love our latest one right over here or if you're not subscribed to the channel yet you can do that right over
here that's all from this crypto bro I'll see you guys in the next show [Music]
