Fidelity: Bitcoin's Classic Four-Year Cycle May Be Ending

Investors, Fidelity Digital Assets recently released an interesting research report.

They believe that Bitcoin's classic "boom-bust" cycle pattern may be becoming a thing of the past.

Moreover, the arguments are quite convincing.

At its peak in October 2025, Bitcoin's market value reached approximately $2.5 trillion.
However, in January 2026, something unusual happened—its annual realized volatility hit a record low for the 17th time.

This has never occurred at such an early point following an all-time high before.

In other words:
Price remains near elevated levels, but market performance is calmer than ever before.

What has changed?

The key point lies in the shift in demand structure.

Today, approximately 12% of Bitcoin's total supply is held by publicly listed companies and ETFs.
Moreover, most of these purchases occurred after 2023.

Let's look at some facts:

— 49 publicly listed companies each hold more than 1,000 Bitcoin
— The largest Bitcoin ETF reached $75 billion in assets under management in less than 2 years
— By comparison, gold ETF GLD took nearly 7 years to reach the same scale

This indicates that institutional capital is entering this market faster than any emerging asset class in history.

Now, let's look at on-chain data.

In this cycle, the market value to realized value ratio has maintained approximately 2x the realized value level.

By comparison:

2013 — approximately 6x
2017 — approximately 4x
2021 — approximately 4x

If this cycle's MVRV reaches at least 4x, that would mean:

— Market value reaching approximately $4.5 trillion
— Bitcoin price of approximately $225,000

But there's another interesting metric worth monitoring.

Fidelity introduced a new metric called the profit volatility ratio.

It measures the ratio between market profits and their volatility.

And surprisingly:

Since late 2023, this metric has remained stable above 0.015, the longest sustained stable period in Bitcoin's history.

Even when price dropped below $70,000 in February 2026, it failed to break this structure.

What could this mean?

Perhaps we are witnessing Bitcoin's transition from the "speculative asset" phase to the "macro asset" phase.

If that's the case, the market landscape may shift:

— No more 80% sharp corrections
— No more extreme euphoric peaks
— More gradual and steady growth

But one thing to remember here.

Market evolution is rarely linear.
Typically, markets break most people's expectations first, then form new structures.

Therefore, I'm inclined to view these findings as a possibility, a potential scenario for market direction, rather than a definitive prediction.

So, investors, what do you think?

Does Bitcoin still follow the old four-year cycle pattern,
or are we gradually entering a completely new market stage?

If interested, I can dive deeper into what this means for the next bear market and our investment strategies. Give it a thumbs up for feedback.