Bull Run

How crypto bull runs differ from traditional bulls

Several characteristics distinguish a crypto bull run from a typical equity bull market:

• Compressed timeline. Major moves happen in months rather than years. The 2020-21 bull took Bitcoin from $10K to $69K in roughly 14 months.
• Higher amplitude. 5x to 20x moves in major altcoins are common during bull runs. Long-tail tokens occasionally do 100x or more.
• Reflexive narrative cycles. A theme captures attention (DeFi summer, NFT mania, memecoins, AI agents), inflows accelerate, prices rise, more attention follows, more inflows. Each cycle within the broader bull tends to last weeks to months before exhausting.
• Ferocious reversals. The same dynamics work in reverse on the way down. The peak euphoria typically gives way to 70-90% drawdowns within the following year or two.

The cycle pattern

Each major crypto bull run since 2013 has followed a recognizable rough shape:

1. Quiet accumulation. After the prior bear bottom, prices stabilize at depressed levels. Builders ship; speculators are exhausted; mainstream attention is gone.
2. Bitcoin leads. Bitcoin breaks out first, often coinciding with macro tailwinds (Fed easing, ETF news, halving cycles).
3. Ethereum and large-caps catch up. Capital rotates as Bitcoin's gains attract attention back to crypto broadly.
4. Bitcoin dominance peaks and rolls over. Capital starts flowing into smaller-cap altcoins; an altseason begins.
5. Mid-cap mania. Sector narratives bloom — DeFi, NFTs, gaming, memecoins, agents. Specific token themes outperform Bitcoin by huge margins.
6. Long-tail blowoff. Speculation reaches the smallest, lowest-quality tokens. Anyone can launch anything; everyone is making money.
7. The peak. Sentiment hits maximum euphoria. New retail entrants arrive. The narrative is "this time is different."
8. The reversal. Some catalyst — leverage flush, exchange failure, regulatory crackdown, broader macro — triggers a sharp drop. Liquidations cascade. The bear begins.

Halving correlation

Crypto folklore links bull-run timing to Bitcoin halvings — the roughly four-year scheduled events that cut Bitcoin's block reward in half. Bulls in 2013, 2017, and 2021 each peaked roughly 12-18 months after a halving. The 2024 halving was followed by Bitcoin breaking new highs in late 2024 and early 2025, fitting the pattern though with a longer and more institutionally-driven cycle than prior runs.

The mechanism is partly real (reduced new supply tightens the market) and partly self-fulfilling (everyone watches halving cycles, so positioning happens around them). Both effects reinforce.

What's different in recent cycles

The 2024-25 bull has had several distinctive features:

• ETF flows. US spot Bitcoin ETFs launched in January 2024 and absorbed record inflows. Institutional buying, rather than retail speculation, drove much of Bitcoin's price action.
• Memecoin dominance. Solana memecoin volume on platforms like Pump.fun at times exceeded the rest of crypto combined.
• AI agent narrative. A new vertical that didn't exist in prior cycles emerged as a major speculative theme.
• Less broad-based altseason. Money has concentrated in narrower themes (memecoins, AI agents, Solana ecosystem) rather than spreading across the entire altcoin universe as in 2017 or 2021.

Surviving them

Most retail participants in any given crypto bull lose money. The mechanism is consistent: people buy late, leveraged, in the most speculative parts of the market, get hurt in the inevitable reversal, and either capitulate or hold through devastating drawdowns. The minority who do well across full cycles tend to share two boring habits: position sizes small enough to survive 80%+ drawdowns, and willingness to take profits while euphoria is still building rather than waiting for an obvious top.