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" cyclical pattern may be becoming a thing of the past.

Moreover, the evidence is quite compelling.

At its October 2025 peak, Bitcoin's market cap reached approximately $2.5 trillion.
However, in January 2026, something unusual occurred—its annual realized volatility hit its 17th historical low.

This has never happened so early after reaching an all-time high before.

In other words:
Price remains near highs, yet market behavior is calmer than ever before.

What has changed?

The key lies in the shift in demand structure.

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

Consider these 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
— In contrast, the gold ETF GLD took nearly 7 years to reach the same scale

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

Now, let's examine on-chain data.

In this cycle, the market value to realized value ratio has remained at approximately 2x the realized value.

In comparison:

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

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

— Market cap reaching approximately $4.5 trillion
— Bitcoin price around $225,000

But there's another interesting metric worth monitoring.

Fidelity introduced a new indicator: 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 stability period in Bitcoin history.

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

What could this mean?

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

If that's true, the market landscape could shift:

— No more 80% crashes
— No more extreme euphoric tops
— More gradual and steady growth instead

But here's something to remember.

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

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

So, investors, what's your take?

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