Arthur Hayes: Bitcoin's 4-year cycle is over, driven now by global liquidity

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes argued in a blog post that the traditional theory of a four-year Bitcoin price cycle is no longer applicable. He explained that while Bitcoin is the most superior form of money in human history, its value is relative and primarily measured against the U.S. dollar in the current global system. Hayes noted that previous all-time highs in 2013, 2017, and 2021 appeared to follow a four-year rhythm inherent to Bitcoin, but this was actually a result of alignment with the monetary policy cycles of the U.S. Federal Reserve. He asserted that the true driver of Bitcoin's price cycle is U.S. dollar liquidity, not the mining halving event. He concluded that the current cycle is unlikely to repeat past patterns, citing the growing influence of China's monetary policy and the yuan on global liquidity. With U.S. and Chinese policies diverging, an imbalanced global dollar supply from an expanding U.S. fiscal deficit, and a fundamentally altered market structure due to the introduction of ETFs, the old model is now obsolete.