Cryptocurrency markets have undergone structural changes that may prevent some digital assets from reaching previous highs.
Summary
- Most of the altcoins are unlikely to reach previous highs due to liquidity problems and too much money concentrated in capital assets.
- The current market is likely to reset mid-cycle, with most of the price declines completed, followed by about 200 days of sideways consolidation before the price expansion begins again.
- The four-year cycle models may no longer work, the market is showing rapid declines and a potential recovery earlier than the consensus view of a long bear market.
The institutional currency has fundamentally altered the market dynamics that have highlighted the bearish cycles associated with Bitcoin’s reduction events.
In 2018, about 1,000 cryptocurrencies are traded in markets that show predictable patterns, according to an analyst. Traders generally rotated between altcoin-to-Bitcoin pairs and exited positions following the post-half bull run. Market behavior in 2021 remained largely led by retail, with semi-events holding significant psychological influence and price patterns repeating consistently.
That framework has changed, according to market analyst Inmortal. Institutional investors have directed billions of dollars primarily into Bitcoin, Ether, and Solana, as well as selected major assets. Thousands of new tokens have been launched in 2025 alone, spreading the available money across a wide range of assets.
The analyst said retail investors expect the agency’s earnings to benefit the broader market. Instead, major institutional players focus on holding onto capital assets while retail funds follow short-term investment issues. As liquidity is spread across multiple tokens, the potential benefits of multiple altcoins decrease.
Under these conditions, 99% of altcoins will never return to their previous highs, according to analyst predictions. The four-year cycle models that market participants previously guided may no longer serve as reliable indicators.
What’s going on?
The crypto market is facing a change that could leave many altcoins permanently below their previous highs. Since liquidity is spread across thousands of tokens, the chances of altcoins recovering are slim. Four-year cycle models, which once guided market forecasts, may no longer hold up as reliable indicators.
In the past, these types of cycles worked because they were based on things like Bitcoin’s devaluation and limited market awareness, making the cycles easier to predict. However, as these patterns become more widely recognized, their predictive value declines. The 2022 forecast was expected to have a cyclical peak in late 2025, and this was very much in line with the market peak seen in October 2025. But the current market structure is showing signs of a deviation from previous cycles.
Unlike the 2018-2021 cycle, where the market saw a sharp 75% price drop followed by more than a year of sideways movement, today’s drop happened much faster. Despite this, long-term support levels, such as the 200-week moving average, remain strong, suggesting that the market is more resilient than a typical end-of-cycle scenario would suggest.
Instead of expecting a long decline followed by 600 days of sideways movement, the analyst believes that the market may have already completed 80-90% of the expected price decline. After that, about 200 days of consolidation may occur before the price expansion starts again. This suggests a mid-cycle reset, challenging the consensus view that a traditional bear market and major losses are still on the horizon.
If this trend materializes, the market may see an earlier recovery than expected, as price pressure may resolve sooner than many expect. However, for altcoins, the outlook remains bleak, with most failing to reach their previous highs due to the accumulation of large sums of capital. Until the market clearly breaks out of the current support levels, the decline is expected to continue during the broad expansion phase.
