The old four year cycle of Crypto may be over that is what Wintermute is saying. Crypto has had this cycle for a time. People who follow Crypto know about this four year cycle. Wintermute thinks that Crypto is done with this cycle now. This is news for people who like Crypto. They want to know what will happen to Crypto next. The four year cycle was something that people could expect from Crypto. Now that it may be over people are wondering what is next, for Crypto.
The usual four year cycle for crypto may not work anymore. This is the point from a new report by Wintermute, a company that does trading at the end of the year. They think the market is not moving because of people getting excited and then losing interest. Instead it is moving because of where people have their money and where big investors are putting their money. Crypto is what is being affected by this. The crypto market is. The people, with a lot of money are making the big decisions. Crypto is being driven by these investors and the money they have to invest in crypto.
Wintermute looked at the numbers, from its trading. They think the year 2025 was a change. Crypto did not have price jumps because of people guessing what would happen. Instead Wintermute says crypto started to trade like it is growing up. Big institutions are now involved with crypto. That is what affects the price. The price of crypto is also affected by where the money's being invested not just what people are talking about. Wintermute thinks this is what happened with crypto in 2025.
One big difference now is how money goes around in the market. In the past when people made money from Bitcoin they would usually put it into Ethereum into bigger alternative coins and finally, into the smaller tokens. This pattern is not happening much as it used to with Bitcoin and these other coins. The way money moves from Bitcoin into Ethereum and other large alternative coins and into smaller tokens is just not the same.
Wintermutes data shows that a lot of the money going into crypto is getting stuck in big assets like Bitcoin. This is happening because of exchange-traded funds and companies that manage assets. They have made a system where they mostly buy and sell Bitcoin and a few other big assets. This means that the money is not moving to smaller assets, in the market. Wintermutes data says that this is creating a problem where Bitcoin and a few other big assets are getting a lot of support but the rest of the market is not getting the money it needs.
At the time people who buy and sell things for retail stopped paying attention to some things. Many traders were looking at company stocks and Artificial Intelligence related stocks. The year 2025 was a time when people put their money into a certain tokens.. The rest of the alternative coin market had a hard time getting people excited, about it. The alternative coin market was. The tokens were getting all the attention.
The old seasonal patterns that we used to know are not working like they used to. Seasonal patterns have changed a lot. We can not count on patterns to be the same as they were before. The way seasonal patterns work now is really different. Seasonal patterns are not what they used to be.
People thought they knew how trading would go in 2025.. It did not happen that way. A lot of people were excited about the US administration because they thought it would be good for crypto. However this excitement did not last long. As time went on people started to get a little scared. Did not want to take as many risks. This was especially true in the few months of the year. Some popular ideas like memecoins and AI agents were not as popular as they used to be. The overall feeling about trading was not as positive as it was before. Trading behavior in 2025 was different, from what many people expected.
Things got really tough in the market at the beginning of April. This was because of the tariff announcements that were made. As a result the market saw a lot of activity in the year.. Then it became really quiet in the spring and summer. The market was very different from how it was in 2023 and 2024. Normally the market sees an increase in activity at the end of the year.. That did not happen this time. The idea of the market doing in October which some people call "Uptober" did not happen at all. The market, for the market was really slow. The market usually sees a lot of activity. The market was quiet. The market and the market activity were very slow.
Wintermute says that the big increases in prices we saw before were not really because of the time of year. They happened because of one event like when an exchange traded fund got approved or people were feeling good about an election. In the year 2025 things were different. Big things that affect the economy were in charge and this made the markets go up and down a lot because of what people were reading in the news rather than because of any long term patterns. Wintermute thinks that these big economic forces made the markets very unpredictable and that is why we saw a lot of ups and downs in 2025 than any steady trends and Wintermute believes that the markets were driven by headlines, about these macro forces.
Altcoin rallies did not last long. On average Altcoin rallies lasted than three weeks in 2025. This is a change from the year before when Altcoin rallies lasted about two months. There were some periods of activity around things like memecoin launchpads or decentralized derivatives but these did not lead to any big changes, in the market. Altcoin rallies just did not have a lasting effect.
Institutions are still around. The returns they used to give us are not as good as they were before. Institutions have managed to stay in place even though the returns have faded away over time. Institutions, like these have found a way to keep going. They are still here but the returns that people used to get from them are gone.
Even when the prices were not changing much the big institutions were still involved. Wintermute said they had 23 percent institutions working with them over the year and these included people who manage assets and regular financial companies.
The thing that really matters is that people started to participate in a steady and thoughtful way. Trading is not just about making guesses and trying to make money from them. Now it is more about doing things the way and managing risks. People are also looking for ways to get a return on their investments. Options trading has become really popular it has more than doubled in the year. Now people are using plans instead of just making random trades and hoping for the best. Options trading like this is, about structured strategies not just trying to make a quick profit.
By the quarter the options activity was really big a lot bigger than it was at the start of the year. This showed that people were interested in options activity all the time not, for a little while. The options activity kept going up. It was clear that people were consistently using options not just trying them out for a short time. The options activity was strong. It looked like people would keep using options.
Something big happened in October. It was a deleveraging event that caused about $19 billion to be liquidated in just one day. After that big traders and small traders started buying Bitcoin and Ethereum. The problem of much borrowing to buy other cryptocurrencies, known as altcoins was solved. This is because all the extra borrowing was removed and by mid-December the number of people holding these altcoins had gone down by, than half. Bitcoin and Ethereum are still popular. People are buying them.
What do you think will be different in 2026. There are a lot of things that could change in 2026. The world is always. 2026 Will be no exception. We might see technology in 2026 that will change the way we live.
* New gadgets will come out in 2026
* New cars will be made in 2026
* New video games will be released in 2026
The way we work could change in 2026. Some people think that robots will do a lot of jobs in 2026. This means that people will have to find jobs in 2026.
2026 Will be an interesting year. We will just have to wait and see what changes, in 2026.
Wintermute thinks that there are three things that can help the market get bigger again. The market is talking about Wintermute and these three developments that Wintermute says can make the market broader. Wintermute has pointed out that these developments are important for the market to grow and Wintermute is waiting to see what happens next, with the market.
The first thing that is happening is that there are more kinds of ETF products available now. We are already seeing signs of this in documents related to things like Solana and XRP. The second thing that is happening is that Bitcoin or Ethereum is doing really well which is making people feel confident and they are making money on paper. This is having an effect on the rest of the market like a ripple effect, from Bitcoin or Ethereum.
The third thing that could happen and this is not very likely to happen is that people who buy and sell things like stocks and are interested, in Artificial Intelligence will start paying attention to crypto again. This would mean that new money would come into crypto and people would start using stablecoins.
Wintermute thinks that even though 2025 did not have the increase in prices that a lot of people thought it would it might be the beginning of a change for crypto. This change is, from crypto being something people buy to see if it goes up in value to it becoming a more normal part of the financial system like other financial assets. Wintermute believes crypto is becoming an established financial asset.
Other people who study the market see the same things happening. A different company called Adler Asset Management did their research and found that the way people feel about the market is changing. They think there will be sell offs and a big change, in how people invest and this will keep going until 2026.
Ultimately, the path forward depends on whether liquidity stays concentrated in a few large assets or begins to spread again. Understanding where capital can move — and what might unlock it — will likely be the key to navigating crypto’s post-cycle era.