Bitcoin’s Price Now Tracks Global Liquidity Curves, Not Block Rewards

• Bitcoin’s four-year cycle relevance fades as global liquidity now defines its rhythm and market psychology.
• Global liquidity expansion 2025 based on US Fed rate cuts, ETF inflows, China credit pulse, anchors Bitcoin’s price moves.
• Arthur Hayes notes the halving myth fade; monetary policy, not time, now drives Bitcoin’s valuation path.

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes says the Bitcoin four-year cycle is dead and that liquidity flows now set the tempo of the market. In his essay “Long Live the King,” Hayes writes that Bitcoin’s historic peaks were never about block-reward halvings but about monetary policy driving Bitcoin through surges in U.S. and Chinese credit. 

When money tightened, the bull runs ended; when liquidity expanded, new highs followed. “Traders counting on a 2025 top will be wrong — the pattern worked before but fails this time,” Hayes stated.

Related: Is the 4-Year Bitcoin Cycle Dead? Liquidity Now Rules the Crypto

Monetary Expansion Replaces Calendar Cycles

Hayes argues that monetary policy drives Bitcoin more directly than its programmed supply schedule. 

The U.S. Treasury has added about $2.5 trillion in fresh liquidity through short-term bill issuance while the Federal Reserve has resumed rate cuts even with inflation above target. 

Futures data from the CME Group shows a 94% probability of a cut in October and an 80% chance of another in December, clear signs of an easing liquidity regime that supports risk assets.

Across Reddit and crypto forums, “Is the four-year cycle dead?” is now the top search thread as traders acknowledge liquidity and not the calendar, as Bitcoin’s real driver.

China’s Credit Cycle Adds Global Momentum

Hayes highlights the China credit cycle as a parallel force behind Bitcoin’s trend. In previous bull runs, yuan-based credit expansion worked in tandem with U.S. stimulus to lift digital assets.

Now, Beijing is shifting from deflation to mild easing, allowing Chinese liquidity to complement rather than offset U.S. flows. That alignment, Hayes says, forms the core of a new structural regime for Bitcoin in 2025, where global money conditions override supply events.

Historical Patterns Show Liquidity as the True Driver

Hayes points to three eras to illustrate the pattern:

• 2013 surge: Federal Reserve quantitative easing and China’s infrastructure credit boom.
• 2017 ICO rally: Yuan devaluation and rapid credit growth.
• 2020–2021 pandemic bull run: Massive U.S. money-supply expansion.

Each cycle showed that Bitcoin halving vs. money supply was a false dichotomy and that liquidity always won. The current environment mirrors those expansions but with a new twist, that of institutional ETF inflows, open interest growth, and regulatory clarity now amplifying monetary policy’s impact.

Institutional ETF Inflows Confirm Shift

Research from K33 Research supports Hayes’s view. Lead analyst Vetle Lunde calls the current market a “liquidity-driven structural regime.”

He notes that Bitcoin’s new all-time high of $126,199 came as ETFs and futures added 63,083 BTC in a single week, the largest accumulation of 2025. This surge in institutional ETF inflows and open interest accumulation confirms that credit conditions; not halving events, steer the market cycle.

Policy Signals Point to Extended Rally

With President Trump pushing for looser fiscal policy and regulators encouraging lending, Hayes expects liquidity to stay abundant. Both the Federal Reserve and China’s PBOC favor lower rates and cheaper credit to sustain growth.

That alignment could extend Bitcoin’s advance into 2026, marking a cycle timed to liquidity, not to the calendar. Hayes’s core message to traders is simple and empirical: Bitcoin’s four-year cycle is dead because money itself now sets the cycle.

Related: The Four-Year Cycle Once Explained Bitcoin, Now Power and Policy Rewrite the Script