Why Willy Woo Thinks Bitcoin’s Four-Year Cycle Could Give Way to a Longer Macro Cycle

Bitcoin analyst Willy Woo’s argument is not that halvings have stopped mattering. It is that their relative economic weight may be declining as Bitcoin becomes a larger, more institutionally traded asset. If the marginal buyer and seller are increasingly macro investors, ETF allocators and corporate treasuries rather than miners, then liquidity, credit conditions and risk appetite could have greater influence over Bitcoin’s major moves. 12

The supply shock is getting smaller

Bitcoin’s block subsidy is fixed by the protocol and is cut in half every 210,000 blocks—roughly every four years. Following the April 2024 halving, miners receive 3.125 BTC per block, producing about 164,250 BTC annually, or roughly 0.8% of supply. The next expected halving in 2028 would reduce the subsidy to 1.5625 BTC and annual issuance to about 82,125 BTC, near 0.4%. 1718

That is still a real, predictable reduction in new supply. Woo’s point is comparative: a halving removes a smaller flow of new coins than it did in Bitcoin’s earlier eras. As that flow shrinks, it may be less able, by itself, to set the timing and scale of an entire market cycle. 16

Why institutional flows could change the marginal price setter

The key distinction is between the stock of Bitcoin held by investors and the flow of capital entering or leaving the market. Prices move at the margin: the next buyer or seller can matter more than the total number of coins held.

Woo’s hypothesis is that regulated investment vehicles and institutional portfolios are becoming more important marginal participants. In that setting, Bitcoin may trade more like a macro-sensitive risk asset—affected by financing availability, interest rates, leverage, portfolio risk budgets and broad liquidity conditions—than like a market driven chiefly by miner sales after a scheduled issuance cut. 25

This is the logic behind his proposed six-to-eight-year framework. Traditional financial markets are often discussed in terms of longer credit or debt cycles, and Woo argues that Bitcoin could become increasingly exposed to those forces as traditional-finance channels take a larger role in price discovery. It is a proposed transition, not an established forecasting rule. 12

Bigger markets may mean less extreme cycles

A more mature market does not necessarily eliminate booms and drawdowns. It can, however, reduce their percentage amplitude. Broader access through regulated products and a larger institutional holder base can make it harder for a single source of demand or supply—whether retail speculation or miner selling—to dominate the entire market.

Galaxy Research’s assessment is consistent with that more limited claim: the four-year pattern remains empirically visible, but the amplitude of cycles has compressed. Its analysis notes that peak-to-trough declines have diminished across the cycles it examined, from 85% to 84% to 77%. 42

21Shares similarly says Bitcoin’s market structure has changed, including increasingly institutional ETF ownership, while concluding that the cycle is “evolving” rather than broken. Its mid-year update described a roughly 50% drawdown as materially milder than prior bear markets exceeding 80%. 36

Why this does not prove the four-year cycle is dead

The strongest version of the claim would be that Bitcoin has definitively replaced its halving cycle with a six-to-eight-year macro cycle. The available evidence does not establish that.

Halvings remain built into the protocol

The supply schedule has not changed. Bitcoin still reduces its block subsidy every 210,000 blocks, and the next expected reduction remains scheduled for around 2028. A smaller supply shock may have less influence than before, but it has not disappeared. 1720

Macro and halving forces can operate together

A four-year issuance schedule and longer, irregular liquidity cycles are not mutually exclusive. Liquidity conditions may change the timing, strength and depth of a post-halving move without erasing the protocol’s recurring supply event.

This overlap is important because a correlation between Bitcoin and macro conditions does not identify a single cause. Periods of easy liquidity can coincide with halving-related phases; periods of tight financial conditions can interrupt them.

The historical sample is small

Bitcoin has experienced only a limited number of halving eras, and its market structure has changed substantially across them. That makes confident claims about a newly dominant six-to-eight-year cycle difficult to test. A few altered or lower-volatility cycles are evidence of a changing regime, not enough to establish a new law of motion.

That caution is reflected in the research debate. Galaxy maintains that the four-year cycle remains observable, albeit with compressed amplitude, while 21Shares has said the cycle has not broken even as it acknowledges major structural changes in ownership and market access. 3642

The practical takeaway

Woo’s thesis is best understood as a change in emphasis: Bitcoin may be moving from a market dominated by its internal issuance clock toward one more strongly shaped by external financial conditions. The falling issuance rate gives that argument a clear mechanism, while institutional access provides a plausible channel for macro forces to matter more. 12

But “more macro-sensitive” is not the same as “no longer halving-driven.” The most evidence-based view is an evolving framework in which halvings, liquidity and institutional flows can all matter—potentially producing less extreme and less clockwork-like cycles than Bitcoin’s earlier history. 3642