Fidelity's Jurrien Timmer: Expect lame 2026 as four-year bitcoin cycle appears intact

Markets Share Share this article Copy link X icon X (Twitter) LinkedIn Facebook Email Fidelity's Jurrien Timmer: Expect lame 2026 as four-year bitcoin cycle appears intact The director of global macro at the asset management giant remains a secular bull on bitcoin, but isn't optimistic about the next year. By Stephen Alpher Dec 20, 2025, 3:00 p.m. Winter arrives (MARCO BOTTIGELLI_/Getty images) What to know : A number of notable market analysts of late have dismissed the idea of bitcoin's four-year cycle and the nearly certain bear market that might imply. Fidelity's Jurrien Timmer, however, says the action so far this time around lines up about perfectly with past four-year cycles and the current bearish action should last deep into 2026. It's become fashionable of late to dismiss bitcoin's BTC $ 88,242.84 four-year cycle — and the inevitable boom and bust it brings — as an anachronism. Just in the past week, Bitwise's Matt Hougan and ARK Invest's Cathie Wood have thrown their considerable weight behind the idea of dismissing the four-year cycle. Each noted the ETFs along with regulatory and institutional acceptance that have blended bitcoin into the traditional financial system. Bitcoin is no longer a fringe asset and there's no reason for it to follow the same pattern today as it did years ago. STORY CONTINUES BELOW Don't miss another story. Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today . See all newsletters Sign me up By signing up, you will receive emails about CoinDesk products and you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . Defining the cycle The four-year cycle is a price pattern linked to bitcoin's halving events, which occur roughly every four years. These halvings reduce by 50% the amount of bitcoin rewarded for mining one block. The 50% cut is thought to lead to a supply shock and forcing a major run higher in price. Following the big bull move comes a crash in the 80% area and then a steady grind higher into the next halving event. Chart squigglers like to point to the bull runs (and subsequent crashes) that occurred following the 2012, 2016, 2020 halvings, and say things are playing out the same for the 2024 event: the sharp run higher which eventually topped out in October 2025 above $125,000, and then the bear market — which is where the market finds itself now. Fidelity's Timmer weighs in An early believer in bitcoin among the traditional finance crowd, Jurrien Timmer, asset management giant Fidelity's director of global macro, isn't seeing anything in his charts that says the four-year cycle is dead. "If we visually line up all the bull markets, we can see that the October high of $125,000 after 145 [weeks] of rallying fits pretty well with what one might expect," Timmer said earlier this week . As for what's next, that would be winter. Timmer noted that the subsequent bear markets tend to last about one year. "My sense is that 2026 could be a “year off” (or 'off year') for bitcoin." Support, he concluded, is in the $65,000-$75,000 range. Bitcoin News market analysis winter More For You Protocol Research: GoPlus Security By CoinDesk Research Nov 14, 2025 Commissioned by GoPlus What to know : As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M. GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month. Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B. View Full Report More For You BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF a true rarity: massive inflows even with negative performance By Stephen Alpher 1 hour ago "If you can do $25 billion in bad year, imagine the flow potential in good year," said Bloomberg's Eric Balchunas What to know : BlackRock's spot bitcoin ETF (IBIT) is sixth in ETF inflows in 2025 despite posting a negative return. IBIT even took in more money than the leading gold ETF (GLD) despite that fund gaining 65% this year. "Boomers putting on a HODL clinic," wrote Bloomberg's Eric Balchunas. 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