Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood questioned one of the core assumptions about Bitcoin. In an interview with Fox Business, she stated that the traditional four-year cycle, long treated as the main framework for boom-and-bust phases in the crypto market, is gradually losing relevance. The reason, she said, is the massive inflow of capital from institutional investors, which structurally stabilizes Bitcoin.
Wood notes that in earlier stages of the market, Bitcoin routinely dropped 70%–90%, whereas recent drawdowns have been noticeably milder. Volatility is declining because large investors behave less speculatively and tend to hold long-term positions. “We believe the four-year cycle is being disrupted,” Wood said. “Institutional participation will prevent much deeper drawdowns. It’s quite possible that we already saw the bottom a few weeks ago.”
At the same time, Wood clearly positions Bitcoin as a risk-on asset that reacts more strongly to macroeconomic trends than to the halving mechanism. Gold, by contrast, she sees as a classic risk-off asset that primarily benefits from geopolitical tensions. For her, the parallel with the tech sector of the 1980s and 1990s is obvious: during innovation phases, risk assets tend to outperform, while gold, according to Wood, is mainly supported by geopolitical uncertainty.
Speaking about ETFs, Wood stressed that passive inflows into products such as the Ark 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB) are creating increasingly structural demand. As a result, the market may drift even further away from its historical cyclicality.
Within the growing camp of experts who question the halving cycle as the key framework for market behaviour, Wood is once again receiving prominent support. And although some analysts still see parallels with earlier patterns, there are more and more signs that Bitcoin is entering a new phase — driven by institutional players, macro trends, and a significantly altered market structure.