Is this the End of this Bull Cycle?

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BTC had a tremendous price gain in this current Bull run where as of writing; a YTD gain of 17.41% and YoY at 71.07%.
When the historical performance is considered in the past Bull runs, it can be observed that BTC has reached its ATH in each cycle within 510 to 550 days from the date of BTC halving.

  • 2017 ATH : 526 days from July 9, 2016 halving
  • 2021 ATH : 546 days from May 11, 2020 halving
  • Current Cycle (as of 26/08/2025): 493 days from April 20, 2024 halving



We are slowly reaching the region in time where BTC reaches its final ATH for the current cycle, marking the start of the bear run. Based on the historical behavior, this region lies within mid-September to end-October for this cycle. The major difference compared to other cycles is that we had a very late Altcoin season in this Bull run. This is mainly due to institutional adoption of BTC and ETH mainly with the introduction of ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds). 2021 Bull run had roughly a 314 day Altcoin season and if this cycle ends in the above region as expected, we will only see a standard Altcoin season only to somewhere between 80 to 110 days.

Also, during the same cycle as the Altcoin season started BTC.D (Bitcoin Dominance) fell from ~60% to ~46% within a span of 35 days and currently we can see the same action starting from the second week of August 2025. This further shows that there's a considerable portion of the altcoin season or the current Bull Cycle to remain intact at least until the BTC.D falls into mid 40%.

But with the current general market sentiment in the overall crypto market, with institutional adoption, oncoming of Solana and XRP ETFs, expected US rate cuts and a US president who is very positive on crypto and profiting well off from it, there is a possibility that this cycle might see an extension.

Even with all these positives, there is a considerable probability that we have already achieved the final ATH for this season. Most people are cautious on a recession with Trump tariffs, increasing US inflation, weakening labor market, possibility of an AI bubble breakout and high frequency of geo-political wars.

Also, the current price action momentum is in a weakening phase. The last two momentum bringing news were unable to maintain the price levels and break resistances. The CPI relief data on 12th August and Jerome Powell's hint on rate cuts at the annual economic policy symposium in Jackson Hole on 22nd August, both triggered a bullish price action which were unable to achieve consolidation at higher price levels. This further shows the uncertainty of the sentiment of the current market.

Current prices are heavily dominated by the derivatives market where OI (Open Interest) reached ATH for most crypto including BTC and SOL within this month. But the funding rates are not explosive unlike the euphoric states we've seen before, which confirms that the market is not over-leveraged as used to be in the past at this phase of the Bull Cycle.

In overall, we are at the last phase of the Bull run whether it gets played as expected or whether it gets extended by few months. Simply, this is the stage where people think BTC will never see 60,000 again.

Don't let delusion take over your strategy. Make sure you bags are ready to be booked into profits and with proper stop losses in place for sudden surprises.

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