Fidelity: Bitcoin's Classic Four-Year Cycle May Be Coming to an End

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 evidence is quite compelling.

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

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

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

What has changed?

The key lies in the shift in demand structure.

Today, close to 12% of Bitcoin's total supply is held by publicly traded companies and ETFs.
Moreover, most of these purchases have occurred since 2023.

Let's look at some facts:

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

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

Now, let's examine on-chain data.

During this cycle, the market value to realized value ratio has remained at 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 suggest:

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

But there's another interesting metric worth watching.

Fidelity introduced a new indicator called the profit volatility ratio.

It measures the ratio between market profit and its volatility.

And surprisingly:

Since late 2023, this indicator has remained stable above 0.015, marking the longest stable period in Bitcoin history.

Even the price drop below $70,000 in February 2026 failed to break this structure.

What might this mean?

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

If that's true, the market landscape could undergo changes:

— No more 80% deep corrections
— No more extreme euphoric tops
— More gradual and stable growth instead

But there's one thing to remember here.

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

Therefore, I tend to view these findings as a possibility, one potential scenario for the market's future direction, rather than a definitive prediction.

So, investors, what do you think?

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