Bitcoin’s bull market cycle has been accelerating, running 100 days ahead of its typical four-year cycle, according to a new report by CoinMarketCap (CMC).
Bitcoin (BTC) is potentially on the way to breaking its traditional four-year cycle and entering a supercycle, CMC stated in its third-quarter market research report released on Oct. 3.
According to CMC Research, multiple factors suggest Bitcoin’s potential entrance into a supercycle, driven by institutional adoption, BTC exchange-traded funds (ETF) and changing market dynamics.
What is the Bitcoin four-year cycle?
Bitcoin’s four-year cycle is an important concept reflecting the cryptocurrency’s market dynamics. The cycle is closely tied to Bitcoin halving events, which cut BTC miner rewards roughly once every four years or when 210,000 new BTC blocks are mined.
Bitcoin halvings usually significantly impact the price of BTC, with bull markets historically peaking 518 to 546 days after halving events.
Bitcoin’s four-year cycle. Source: eToro
According to CMC, Bitcoin’s price performance, coupled with the most recent BTC halving — which occurred on April 20, 2024 — suggests that a potential BTC all-time high could occur significantly earlier than typically expected.
Estimating Bitcoin’s current bull market progress at 40.66%, CMC wrote:
“This time, Bitcoin is ahead by about 100 days, pointing to a potential peak between mid-May and mid-June 2025 [...] Despite this early acceleration, there are signs of slowing infrastructure growth, which could indicate that broader market dynamics are evolving.”
Among the factors that suggest that BTC may be breaking its traditional four-year cycle, CMC mentioned Bitcoin’s increasing correlation with traditional assets such as gold and tech stocks, as well as the growing institutional adoption from companies like MicroStrategy and Semler Scientific.
On Oct. 2, Forbes published an article titled “Why Bitcoin is becoming a part of traditional finance,” another piece of evidence that BTC is becoming increasingly adopted in the financial world.
Storage, lending and privacy sectors lead market drop in Q3 2024
In the report, CMC also provided the 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 at least 10% market cap losses in Q3, dropping up to 40%, CMC stated. According to CMC, the storage, lending and privacy sectors of the industry were struggling the most, seeing losses of 39%, 37% and 31%, respectively.
Top six sectors leading market cap losses in Q3 2024. Source: CoinMarketCap
CMC noted that sectors related to decentralized finance (DeFi) and infrastructure have struggled in the Q3 bearish market amid an apparent shift to “more speculative and consumer-focused sectors” like 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 mentioned that the United States has continued to lead the global crypto user base with a 17% market share.
India, which ranked first in Chainalysis’s crypto adoption index in September, has become the second-largest country for crypto users, with a market share of more than 9%.
Brazil, ranked third, had an 8% market share in terms of cryptocurrency users globally.
Additionally, the CMC report highlighted that Bitcoin was the most popular coin across all continents in Q3, with the market share varying from 45% in Africa to as high as 52% in Oceania.
Most popular cryptocurrencies by region in Q3 2024. Source: CoinMarketCap
Ether (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization at the time of writing, ranked third across most of the regions, with an average market share of roughly 13%.
Solana (SOL), the fifth-largest crypto market by market value, ranked second in the CMC’s most popular coins globally, with an average share of 14%.
Toncoin (TON), the native cryptocurrency of the Telegram-linked blockchain project, The Open Network, was also among the most popular cryptocurrencies in Q3, ranking third with 15% in Africa, CMC reported.
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