Arthur Hayes Declares the Four-Year Bitcoin Cycle Dead — “Long Live the King”

In his new essay, ex-BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes says Bitcoin’s fate is no longer driven by halving cycles, but by the liquidity tides of the U.S. dollar and Chinese yuan. The crypto market, he argues, now dances to the rhythm of central banks — not miners.

⚡ Quick Hits

• 🧠 Essay: “Long Live the King” — Arthur Hayes’ latest macro analysis.
• 💵 Thesis: Bitcoin’s performance now follows U.S. and Chinese liquidity, not block rewards.
• 🏦 Fed & PBoC: Monetary policy shifts dictate bull and bear markets.
• 📉 Cycle Update: The traditional four-year Bitcoin cycle is obsolete.
• 🌏 Macro View: Dollar liquidity, Chinese credit, and political cycles now drive crypto valuations.

🏛️ The King’s New Thesis: Bitcoin Beyond Halvings

Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX and CIO of Maelstrom, has a message for crypto investors stuck in the past: the four-year cycle is over.

In his new essay, “Long Live the King,” Hayes traces Bitcoin’s entire history — from the 2009 genesis block to the 2025 liquidity boom — and connects each bull run not to halvings, but to monetary expansion in the U.S. and China.

“Bitcoin’s price is a reflection of fiat liquidity,” Hayes writes. “Its heartbeat is the pulse of the dollar.”

According to him, Bitcoin’s so-called “cycles” were never about math or code. They were about central bank money supply, and those dynamics have permanently changed.

💸 Money: Humanity’s Oldest Technology

Hayes opens with a philosophical premise: money is how society allocates scarcity. It signals what to produce, who gets access, and what value looks like.

Governments, unable to wait for genuine abundance, print money to solve crises, distorting markets along the way. From the gold standard to the digital dollar, every intervention reshapes how people store and move value.

That’s why, Hayes argues, Bitcoin is the best money ever created — a system that removes moral and political bias from monetary control.

“Hard money cannot exist in a world run by politicians,” Hayes notes. “But Satoshi gave us code that can’t be corrupted.”

🔍 Why the 4-Year Cycle Is Dead

Bitcoin used to behave like clockwork — three boom-bust cycles, each roughly four years apart, peaking after halvings. But that rhythm was a byproduct of monetary expansion, not block rewards.

Hayes maps each era against U.S. and Chinese credit data, showing how liquidity waves — not mining events — set the tempo.

🪙 Cycle 1: Genesis (2009–2013)

• Global crisis.
• U.S.: Fed launches unlimited QE.
• China: Massive credit expansion via infrastructure spending. Bitcoin rises from code experiment to global phenomenon.

By 2013, both the Fed and PBoC tightened policy, ending the first cycle.

💥 Cycle 2: ICO Boom (2013–2017)

• Ethereum launches, spawning ICO mania.
• China floods markets with cheap credit, devaluing the yuan.
• Fed tightens liquidity.

Result: Bitcoin rockets upward — then collapses as credit slows and regulators crack down.

🦠 Cycle 3: COVID Stimulus (2017–2021)

• Trillions in stimulus under Trump and Biden.
• China pulls back, enforcing the “Three Red Lines” on property lending.
• Crypto explodes as free money floods risk assets.

When inflation surged and the Fed began hiking rates, the bull market died overnight.

🌍 Cycle 4: The New Order (2021–Present)

This time, liquidity didn’t come from QE — it came from reverse repo releases. Janet Yellen’s Treasury freed $2.5 trillion in idle funds, feeding markets quietly.

Meanwhile, China is deflating, the dollar is tightening, and yet Bitcoin keeps rising — proof, says Hayes, that macro policy, not halvings, now rules the kingdom.

“The Fed doesn’t need to print — it just needs to loosen,” he writes. “Liquidity is policy, and policy is Bitcoin’s oxygen.”

⚖️ The Macro Pivot: U.S. vs China

Hayes believes Bitcoin’s next major catalyst will come from a pivot in global monetary policy.

• The U.S. is approaching a softening phase, with rate cuts already starting despite inflation staying above target.
• China, facing deflation and capital flight, may soon reflate its economy.

Together, these moves could ignite a synchronized liquidity boom, reshaping the next decade of crypto growth.

“The dollar and yuan are the twin engines of Bitcoin’s destiny,” Hayes says.

🧠 The Bigger Picture: Fiat Fragility and Bitcoin Sovereignty

Beneath the economics, Hayes’ essay reads like a manifesto for digital sovereignty. Central banks, he argues, can’t resist manipulating money — and every intervention erodes trust.

Bitcoin, by contrast, is incorruptible monetary infrastructure: global, neutral, programmable, and beyond state coercion.

The halving cycle is dead. The liquidity cycle has taken its place.

TL;DR

• 🪙 Arthur Hayes declares Bitcoin’s four-year cycle obsolete.
• 💵 The new driver: U.S. dollar and Chinese yuan liquidity.
• 📉 Fed and PBoC tightening = bear markets.
• 💹 Liquidity injections = bull markets.
• ⚖️ Hayes forecasts a monetary pivot that could ignite the next mega rally.