Crypto’s four-year cycle may matter less amid shifting macro forces, report says
Bitcoin’s long-standing four-year market cycle tied to halving events may be losing influence, according to a new outlook from crypto exchange Bybit and research firm Block Scholes that examines market conditions through 2026.
The report suggests that Bitcoin price action may be increasingly influenced by macroeconomic policy, institutional participation, and market structure rather than by new supply reductions. It says historical cycles have tended to track changes in global liquidity, often measured by global M2, and that this relationship has become more visible, while Bitcoin continues to respond to shifts in expectations for Federal Reserve rate cuts.
ETFs reshaping demand dynamics
The analysis points to structural changes in demand, citing the launch of spot Bitcoin ETFs and the growth of corporate digital asset treasuries (DATs). The report says ETF flows and corporate balance-sheet allocations are playing a larger role in price formation than retail trading.
That shift is disrupting the traditional capital rotation from Bitcoin into Ethereum and then into smaller altcoins and memecoins. As a result, the report suggests broad altcoin rallies may be harder to ignite, with gains depending on whether assets can be incorporated into institutional products such as ETFs.
On the macro front, the report says markets are pricing in further Federal Reserve easing, with looser financial conditions potentially supporting a closer relationship between Bitcoin and major stock indexes despite recent underperformance versus U.S. equities.
Based on options pricing, the report estimates a 10.3% implied probability that Bitcoin reaches $150,000 by the end of 2026. At present, Bitcoin is trading slightly above $91,000.
Index criteria and Japan policy in view
The analysis also highlights policy risks, including potential volatility tied to concerns over the possible exclusion of Strategy from major stock indexes, which could affect companies holding digital assets on their balance sheets. That risk has since eased after MSCI paused a proposal that would have excluded firms with digital asset reserves, though Benchmark analyst Mark Palmer cautioned that the issue could resurface in future rule reviews.
The Bybit-Block Scholes report also cites potential policy tightening by the Bank of Japan later this year as another source of cross-asset risk, following its December rate hike of 25 basis points to a 30-year high of 0.75%.
RWA and stablecoins
One area of focus in the report for 2026 is real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, which it describes as building on the stablecoin adoption that gathered pace last year.
That view is echoed in a separate outlook from Moody’s, cited by Cointelegraph, which says fiat-backed stablecoins and tokenized bank deposits are functioning as “digital cash” for settlement, liquidity management, and collateral movement. Moody’s estimates stablecoins processed about $9 trillion in on-chain settlement volume in 2025 and projects banks, asset managers, and infrastructure providers could invest more than $300 billion in digital finance by 2030.
As an example, Moody’s cited JPMorgan’s U.S. dollar–denominated deposit token, JPM Coin, as a way digital-cash layers can operate on top of existing banking systems. The bank’s Kinexys unit plans to work with Digital Asset to bring JPM Coin to Digital Asset’s Canton Network in a phased rollout during 2026. This follows JPMorgan’s expansion of the project onto Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 network Base for institutional clients.
