Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood he says Bitcoin’s long-running four-year pattern may be losing traction as major financial players buy and hold more supply, a shift that could tame price swings and change the way investors plan ahead.
Institutional buying is changing markets
According to Wood, large firms and spot ETFs are slowly closing in on coins that have been moving in and out of retail hands. The last halving, on April 20, 2024, cut the miner’s reward to 3,125 BTC.
On a daily basis, that reduction translated to about 450 The fall of bitcoin in supply each day, a figure some analysts call small compared to the trillions attributed to market value and the billions moving into ETFs.
Ark has also been active, buying shares in Coinbase, Circle and its own Ark 21Shares Bitcoin ETF ( ARKB ), a signal that institutional demand is more than rumours.
The rules of the cycle are being questioned
Based on reports from banks and crypto companies, a familiar cycle—the upswings associated with half followed by deep declines of 75–90%—this is debated.
Standard Chartered has cut its price forecast for 2025 from $200,000 to $100,000, saying ETF inflows dampen the impact of the price halving.
Bitwise’s Matt Hougan and CryptoQuant founder Ki Young Ju said institutional flows have changed or even erased the classic rhythm.
Markets peaked near $122,000 in July, and some analysts now say future declines could be shallower, in the 25% to 40% range, rather than the extreme collapses seen earlier.
The market structure still shows the old patterns
Not all evidence points to a completed cycle. Reports published by on-chain analytics firms such as Glassnode show behaviors among long-term holders that look like past up-and-down movements.
Late-cycle buyer demand has declined in ways that mirror previous years, according to that survey. It is argued that halvings remain significant breaks within a longer trend rather than irrelevant events.
Macro observers add that broader economic forces – rates, fiat liquidity and institutional appetite – are increasingly important in the price story.
Investors should expect longer moves more often, with gains stretching over multiple months and generally lower volatility, analysts say.
Wood suggested that volatility is falling and that markets may have already bottomed a few weeks ago.
Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView
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