So, picture this, you’re in the office kitchen, sipping your lukewarm coffee, overhearing the water cooler gossip about how the crypto market just took a dip.
Bitcoin drops 7.5% , Ethereum’s down 10%, and $340 billion has vanished in a week.
The usual gloom spreads, the cycle’s peaked, everyone wails. But hold on, is this the grand final curtain call or just a sly bear trap?
The 4-year cycle is over?
Once upon a time, the crypto market danced to a predictable beat, the so-called 4-year cycle. That came from the Bitcoin halving cycles.
Like clockwork, it rose, fell, and rose again, think of it like the office’s quarterly budget meetings that never fail to stir drama. But analyst and crypto economist Alex Krüger?
Remarkable how every time you get a correction from new highs so many people start to fret about the cycle top. Over and over again.
Some thoughts on the market:
– This indeed is not early in the move, bitcoin is already 7x from the 2022 lows, and much of the move recently is… pic.twitter.com/x9URFs7PqG
— Alex Krüger (@krugermacro) August 18, 2025
He’s waving a big red flag. He says that 4-year rhythm has flat-out died, retired, kicked to the curb two full cycles ago.
Remember 2021’s wild ride? It was the Federal Reserve’s heavy hand pressing down, turning the mic off on Bitcoin’s natural groove.
Sucker puch
See, the Fed’s shift into an ultra-hawkish stance starting January 2022 was like an overbearing boss breathing down investors’ necks.
But don’t bet your chips that the game’s over just yet. Krüger says Bitcoin’s now behaving more like a stock, so less rollercoaster, more slow climb, especially after spot ETF approvals shuffled the deck.
And he’s betting on a dovish turn from the Fed ahead, a softening of policies that could light a fire under crypto prices again.
Now, about this 7% market dip, it’s not necessarily the apocalypse. History’s got a cheeky sense of humor, in 2017, we saw a brutal 40% September drop before crypto blasted through new highs three months later.
Ditto for 2021 with a similar 25% September slump before the market roared back. Analysts call this the bear trap, a clever sucker punch that sends scared investors packing just before the real rally begins.
Bear trap
The Halving Cycles Theory marks the potential cycle top for crypto around late November, just over three months from now.
So yeah, we might be smack dab in the heart of the bear trap territory, not the graveyard.
Either way, this market correction might be nothing more than a dramatic pause. The real story?
The old 4-year cycle is likely dead, or at least, some smartg yus say that, but crypto’s life force is adapting.
Bitcoin Macro bull-cycles
2011:
– Duration 9 Months (after ATH)
– Bear trap in Month 62013:
– Duration 9 Months
– Bear trap in Month 62017:
– Duration 9 Months
– Bear trap in Month 62021:
– Duration 9 Months
– Bear trap in Month 62025:
– We just entered Month 6…Do… pic.twitter.com/2vp9a9ylOr
— ᴛʀᴀᴄᴇʀ (@DeFiTracer) August 18, 2025
Fed policy shifts could be the new force behind the change. So next time you hear the market’s done, remember, it’s not always the end, sometimes, it’s just the setup for the next big act.
Cryptocurrency and Web3 expert, founder of Kriptoworld
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With years of experience covering the blockchain space, András delivers insightful reporting on DeFi, tokenization, altcoins, and crypto regulations shaping the digital economy.
