Bitcoin could crash by another 30% as four-year cycle gains strength, investment firm says

Markets Share Share this article Copy link X icon X (Twitter) LinkedIn Facebook Email Bitcoin could crash by another 30% as four-year cycle gains strength, investment firm says Bitcoin is now firmly in a deep bear market and could fall another 30% in 2026, firm said. By Omkar Godbole Mar 7, 2026, 5:44 a.m. Make us preferred on Google Investment firm predicts another 30% crash in bitcoin. What to know : Bitcoin is now firmly in a deep bear market and could fall another 30% in 2026, according to CK Zheng of ZX Squared Capital. Zheng argues that predictable investor psychology reinforces bitcoin’s four-year boom-and-bust pattern, keeping it a speculative asset rather than a safe-haven like gold. Bitcoin BTC $ 68,025.16 is firmly in the deepest phase of the bear market and the pain may worsen, according to CK Zheng, founder of crypto investment firm ZX Squared Capital. "Bitcoin's price is convincingly in deep bear market territory now. We expect a further 30% price drop during 2026 as the Iran war started," Zheng told CoinDesk in an email, citing the "four-year cycle" as one of the key catalysts. The world's largest cryptocurrency has already nearly halved since hitting a record high of over $126,000 in October last year, according to CoinDesk data. As of writing, it changed hands at around $68,000. The four-year bitcoin cycle Crypto investors often talk about the "four-year cycle" – a pattern in which prices surge, crash, and then recover, centred on the quadrennial mining reward halving. The halving, most recently implemented in April 2024, is a programmed event that halves bitcoin's supply expansion rate every 4 years. As of today, 3.125 BTC are emitted as rewards for each block mined on the Bitcoin network, down from the original 50 BTC at launch after four halving events to date. Historically, bitcoin's price has tended to peak about 16–18 months after a halving, followed by a bear market that typically lasts about a year. BTC topping out in October last year, roughly 18 months after the April 2024 halving, means the cycle is playing out again. So, the bear market could deepen in the near term. Zheng said that the cycle is proving very difficult to break. According to him, the reason is simple: human psychology. "The "Four-year crypto cycle" momentum is gaining strength and is extremely difficult to break due to individual investors' psychological behaviors," Zheng said. Individual investors tend to behave in predictable ways — buying during hype and selling during panic. That behavior reinforces the boom-and-bust four-year pattern that has defined crypto markets for more than a decade. Because of this, Zheng said bitcoin still trades more like a speculative asset than a safe haven like gold. He added that the institutional adoption of bitcoin remains very slow and limited in scope at this stage and warned that some firms that have purchased bitcoin as a treasury asset may be forced to sell, leading to a deeper price sell-off. "The total size of crypto ETFs and Digital Asset Treasury companies is only around 10% of the whole crypto market. Some Digital Asset Treasury firms may be forced to sell cryptos to meet certain debt servicing requirements during this bear market, which may create a vicious cycle," Zheng said. For now, Zheng's outlook is clear: crypto's bear market may have further to run before the next cycle begins. Bitcoin News More For You Pudgy Penguins: Challenging the Pokemon and Disney Legacy in the Global IP Race By CoinDesk Research Feb 27, 2026 Commissioned by Pudgy Penguins CoinDesk Research looks into how Pudgy Penguins disrupts traditional toys market via a phygital model. With 2M+ units sold, they scale via global partnerships and events. What to know : Disrupting a Stagnant Market : Pudgy Penguins is utilizing a "Negative CAC" model to challenge the traditional $31.7B licensed toy industry by treating physical merchandise as a profitable user acquisition tool rather than just a final product. View Full Report More For You Why bitcoin couldn't hold $70,000 despite its best week of Wall Street news in months By Oliver Knight | Edited by Stephen Alpher 9 hours ago Institutional interest continues to grow, but a stronger dollar and shifting interest rate expectations are keeping a lid on the latest rally. What to know : Despite a wave of "crypto-native" wins — like BNY Mellon acting as an ETF custodian and Kraken gaining Fed payment access — Bitcoin is increasingly ignoring positive industry news to follow global trends, such as the U.S. dollar index and interest rates. The same Wall Street adoption the industry spent years chasing has tightly coupled bitcoin with the Nasdaq, leading to a selloff in crypto right alongside tech stocks. While the price is currently stuck in a downward grind, the plumbing of the industry is becoming more robust, with heavyweights like ICE investing in exchanges and the White House encouraging banks to work with the sector. 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