Bitcoin Bull Cycle Exceeds Historical Patterns by 100 Days: Report

According to a new report by CoinMarketCap (CMC), Bitcoin's bull market cycle is accelerating 100 days ahead of its normal four-year cycle.

Bitcoin (BTC) may be on track to break its traditional four-year cycle and enter a supercycle, CMC said in its third quarter market research report released on October 3.

According to CMC Research, several factors point to Bitcoin's potential entry into a supercycle, driven by institutional adoption, BTC exchange-traded funds (ETF) and changing market dynamics.

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What is Bitcoin's four-year cycle?

Bitcoin's four-year cycle is an important concept that reflects the volatility of the cryptocurrency market. The cycle is closely tied to the Bitcoin halving events, which occur once every four years or when 210,000 new BTC blocks are produced, reducing BTC mining rewards.

Bitcoin halvings usually have a significant impact on BTC prices, with bull markets historically peaking after 518 to 546 halving events.

According to CMC, Bitcoin's price performance combined with BTC's recent halving — which occurred on April 20, 2024 — suggests that BTC's all-time high may occur earlier than commonly expected.

Assessing Bitcoin's current bull market growth at 40.66%, CMC wrote:

“At this point, Bitcoin is almost 100 days ahead of a potential high between mid-May and mid-June 2025. […] While this accelerated earlier, infrastructure growth is showing signs of slowing, which may indicate broader market volatility is improving.

Among the reasons that suggest BTC is breaking its traditional four-year cycle, CMC cited its correlation with traditional assets like gold and tech stocks, as well as growing institutional adoption from companies like MicroStrategy and Semler Scientific.

On October 2, Forbes published an article entitled “Why Bitcoin is becoming a part of traditional finance”, another evidence that BTC is increasing in the financial world.

Storage, credit and privacy sectors will lead the market decline in Q3 2024

In the report, CMC presented a list of the top five active sectors in the crypto industry, with memecoins and Ethereum leading the chart.

Despite a rally at the end of the third quarter, 16 sectors still suffered a market value loss of at least 10% in Q3, down as much as 40%, according to the CMC. According to CMC, the storage, credit and privacy sectors of the industry were struggling the most, seeing losses of 39%, 37% and 31% respectively.

The CMC said decentralized finance (DeFi) and infrastructure-related sectors struggled in the Q3 bearish market amid a shift to “more speculative and consumer-oriented sectors” such as artificial intelligence, media and memes.

The US, India and Brazil are among the largest countries for crypto users.

Among other insights in the report, CMC noted that the United States continues to lead the global crypto user base with a 17% market share.

India, which topped the Chinalysis Crypto Adoption Index in September, is the second largest country in terms of crypto users with a market share of over 9%.

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Brazil, which ranked third, had an 8% market share of cryptocurrency users worldwide.

Additionally, the CMC report highlighted that Bitcoin was the most popular coin in Q3 across all continents, with market share varying from 45% in Africa to 52% in Oceania.

Ether (ETH), the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization at the time of this writing, ranks third in most regions, with an average market share of approximately 13 percent.

Solana (SOL), the fifth largest crypto market by market capitalization, is the second most popular coin in CMC globally, with an average share of 14 percent.

Toncoin (Ton), the parent of the Telegram-linked blockchain project The Open Network, was among the most popular cryptocurrencies in Q3, ranking third in Africa at 15 percent, according to CMC.

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