Are retail investors in the crypto space waiting for history to repeat? Bitwise CEO: "The 4-year cycle" is dead, the institutional era has arrived

If you’re still waiting patiently for the cryptocurrency market to “rebound on time” according to past historical scripts, the asset management giant Bitwise co-founder and CEO Hunter Horsley offers a harsh yet truthful warning: stop waiting. Hunter Horsley states, “The four-year bull-bear cycle for Bitcoin has completely ended.” He explains that in the past, the crypto industry firmly believed in the iron law of “rising for 3 years, falling for 1 year.” Since last year was a decline year, the old rhythm has been broken, and this cycle should now be declared over. A New Chapter: The Arena of Institutions As the “4-year cycle” enters history, the rapidly growing digital asset sector will usher in a new industry landscape. Hunter Horsley quotes Winston Churchill’s famous saying: This is not the end, even not the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning. Hunter Horsley emphasizes that the market inertia and intuition of the old era are now completely ineffective in today’s game. For example, the current hot topics in the industry are no longer centered around native crypto exchanges like Gemini, but instead involve Wall Street investment banks such as Morgan Stanley; meanwhile, stablecoins with a total supply surpassing $300 billion are now equally scrutinized as the previously hyped competing tokens. In Hunter Horsley’s interpretation, this new chapter will be dominated by mainstream financial institutions. The number of oligopolistic players in the market will decrease, but overall adoption will significantly increase, and the market structure will be entirely different from the past. “STRC Effect” Regarding the Strategy-issued preferred stock Stretch (STRC), Hunter Horsley’s attitude is very clear and optimistic. He says, “I believe this trend will be unstoppable, and it’s still in a very early stage.” He compares STRC to Snapchat’s pioneering “disappearing after viewing” photo feature: initially shocking and met with market skepticism, but ultimately hitting the core pain points and precisely meeting users’ fundamental needs. Hunter Horsley believes that STRC employs the same strategy. It uses Bitcoin as collateral to support a stable net asset value (NAV), while providing returns to investors. He predicts that within the next 12 months, products like this will become widespread across the industry, extending Bitcoin’s application scope into the traditional fixed income markets. All of this would be impossible without the meticulous planning and promotion by Strategy founder Michael Saylor. Last month, STRC set a new single-day trading volume record and became Strategy’s “printing press” for continuously buying Bitcoin. However, Michael Saylor recently broke his silence, admitting that the company might need to sell some Bitcoin to pay dividends on STRC, breaking his long-standing promise of “never selling Bitcoin.” Reigniting the Payment Narrative Regarding the largest asset in the crypto market, Hunter Horsley also refutes the common market belief that Bitcoin’s “payment vision has been completely replaced by ‘store of value.’” He believes that over the past 10 years, the market had to first establish a consensus that “Bitcoin itself has value.” Now, that debate has been settled. With billions of people worldwide holding Bitcoin and the consensus on its value becoming more solid, the precondition for Bitcoin to re-emerge as a “payment tool” is finally in place. In fact, the speed at which we are entering this new chapter of “Bitcoin payments” will be faster than most people imagine. BlackRock is not a threat; it’s the strongest teammate in the crypto world Bitwise currently manages assets worth up to $15 billion, covering more than 30 products, most of which have been accumulated since 2021 (initially less than $1 billion). Despite the strong entry of asset management giant BlackRock into the crypto market, Hunter Horsley believes that BlackRock’s involvement has actually propelled the entire industry’s development. He admits that BlackRock’s reputation has, in fact, helped all crypto industry players (including Bitwise) complete the most difficult market education and promotion work: BlackRock is basically the strongest teammate for Bitwise; the biggest obstacle to Bitwise’s growth has never been BlackRock, but rather investors thinking “there’s no need to invest in cryptocurrencies,” or worrying about “getting into trouble by buying crypto.”