Around the middle of last year, a macro portfolio manager sat down in a conference room somewhere in Manhattan with a slide deck that presented a simple argument: Bitcoin should be moving toward its next peak after the halving. The historical instance was spotless. The next eighteen months saw a 10,000% increase as a result of the 2012 halving. About 3,000% was provided in the 2016 cycle. The 2020 halving reached about 700%. Calling the pattern a cycle felt both reasonable and cautious because it had persisted for three consecutive halvings. By most accounts, the manager decreased exposure nevertheless. The slide show was precise. The market was unconcerned.
Two years after the April 2024 halving, Bitcoin has gained about 15% since then, which is not a bull run by the standards of prior cycles. It is no more than a rounding mistake. There is real merit to the conventional interpretation, which blames the spot ETF approval in January 2024. In the months preceding the halving, billions of dollars invested in Bitcoin after US regulators approved direct institutional access to the cryptocurrency through exchange-traded fund structures.
This cycle’s supply shock, which had previously come as a post-halving surprise, had mostly been expected and absorbed beforehand. The early arrival of the cycle’s peak, which peaked in October 2025 at roughly $108,000, made the post-halving phase disappointing, something Bitcoin had never experienced before.
| Category | Detail |
|---|---|
| Most Recent Halving | April 2024 — Bitcoin’s fourth halving, reducing block reward from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC; preceded by the January 2024 approval of US spot Bitcoin ETFs |
| Post-Halving Price Gain (to April 2026) | Approximately 15% since the April 2024 halving — significantly below previous cycles’ post-halving appreciation, with Q1 2026 reported as Bitcoin’s weakest first quarter since 2018 |
| The “Pull Forward” Effect | Spot ETF approval in January 2024 accelerated institutional buying months before the halving — front-running the supply shock and muting post-halving momentum that historically followed the event |
| Volatility Change | Bitcoin’s 30-day volatility index stayed below 1.75% for much of 2025–2026 — significantly lower than in previous cycles, reflecting the stabilising effect of ETF-driven institutional flows |
| Correlation with Nasdaq 100 | Bitcoin’s correlation with the Nasdaq 100 rose to over 0.52 in 2025 — making it behave more like a high-beta tech stock than an uncorrelated macro hedge |
| Interest Rate Context | Unlike previous halvings (2012, 2016, 2020) which occurred in low-rate environments, the 2024 halving was followed by persistent high yields reducing appetite for non-yielding assets |
| Miner Behaviour Shift | Major mining operations increasingly pivoting to AI computing infrastructure — diverting hash rate capacity and reducing the traditional post-halving supply squeeze effect |
| Further Reference | On-chain data and cycle analysis at Glassnode |
The interest rate environment is doing the rest of the work. Every previous halving — 2012, 2016, 2020 — occurred against a backdrop of historically low rates, in conditions where investors hungry for yield were incentivised to move up the risk spectrum. Bitcoin sat at the far end of that spectrum and benefited accordingly.
The 2024 halving arrived into a world where yields on long-duration bonds remained elevated, where central bank balance sheet reduction was continuing, and where institutional risk managers were actively reducing exposure to non-yielding assets that had performed poorly on a risk-adjusted basis relative to simply owning Treasuries. Bitcoin was not uniquely penalised by this. But it was caught in it in a way that previous cycles, occurring in very different monetary conditions, simply weren’t.
There is also the correlation problem, which is quietly eroding one of the more compelling institutional arguments for holding Bitcoin in the first place. The asset’s correlation with the Nasdaq 100 rose to over 0.52 in 2025 — meaning that on most days where tech stocks fall, Bitcoin falls too, and in similar proportion. For portfolio managers whose original case for crypto rested on its diversification properties, that is a structurally inconvenient number.
Bitcoin increasingly behaves like a high-beta version of the technology sector rather than a genuinely independent macro asset. Adding it to a portfolio that already holds Nvidia and Alphabet provides less diversification than the original thesis promised. Institutions have noticed, and some have adjusted accordingly.
The miner behaviour shift adds a dimension that is easy to miss in the headline price discussion. Large mining operations, which are the primary sellers of newly created Bitcoin and a key driver of post-halving supply dynamics, have been pivoting significant portions of their computing infrastructure toward AI workloads.
The economics are compelling: AI inference and training demand the same kind of specialised hardware that Bitcoin mining requires, and the revenue per unit of electricity is currently more attractive on the AI side. One of the structural reasons the halving cycle worked in the past is because of this diversion, which lowers the post-halving supply pressure. From the inside, the mechanism has been partially defused.
It’s still unclear if this cycle has just been postponed, if institutional flows, the demand for ETFs, and the eventual easing of monetary conditions will all work together to create a real but delayed appreciation, or if the dynamics have actually changed to the point where the old playbook is no longer applicable. The institutional funds are intact. It is alert, careful, and keeping an eye on the macroenvironment to see if the risk is worthwhile. In a market that rewarded impatience for ten years, that patience is novel.
