Halving Cycle? Exchange Inflows? Forget Them — The Post-ETF Era Playbook

Bitcoin’s “four-year law” may be breaking for the first time. Despite record inflows into spot ETFs and swelling corporate treasuries, the market is no longer moving in lockstep with the halving cycle.

Instead, liquidity shocks, sovereign wealth allocations, and derivatives growth are emerging as the new anchors of price discovery. This shift raises a critical question for 2026: can institutions still rely on cycle playbooks, or must they rewrite the rules entirely?

Has the cycle finally snapped?

With these forces now setting the pace, the question is not whether the old cycle still matters but whether it has already been replaced. BeInCrypto spoke with James Check, Co-Founder and on-chain analyst at Checkonchain Analytics and former Lead On-Chain Analyst at Glassnode, to test this thesis.

For years, Bitcoin investors treated the four-year halving cycle as gospel. That rhythm now faces its toughest test. In September 2025, CoinShares tracked $1.9 billion in ETF inflows—nearly half of it into Bitcoin—while Glassnode flagged $108,000–$114,000 as a make-or-break zone. At the same time, CryptoQuant recorded exchange inflows collapsing to historic lows, even as Bitcoin pushed into fresh all-time highs.

ETF inflows: fresh demand or reshuffling?

September’s ETF inflows highlighted robust demand, but investors need to know whether this is genuinely new capital or simply existing holders rotating from vehicles like GBTC. That distinction affects how much structural support the rally has.

“There is absolutely going to be some holders who are migrating from holding on-chain into the ETFs. This is definitely happening. However, it is not the majority… the demand has actually been incredible and massive. We’re talking about tens of billions of dollars, really serious capital coming on board. The difference is that we have a lot of sell side.”

James noted that ETFs have already absorbed around $60 billion in total inflows. Market data shows this figure is overshadowed by monthly realized profit-taking of $30–100 billion from long-term holders, underscoring why prices have not climbed as quickly as ETF demand alone might suggest.

Exchange flows: signal or noise?

CryptoQuant shows that exchange inflows reached record lows at Bitcoin’s 2025 highs. At face value, this could mean structural scarcity. However, James cautioned against over-reliance on these metrics.

“You won’t see me actually use exchange data very often because I think it’s just not a highly useful tool. The exchanges have I think it’s like 3.4 million bitcoin. A lot of these data providers simply don’t have all the wallet addresses because it’s a really, really hard job to find them all.”

Analysis confirms this limitation, noting that long-term holder supply—currently 15.68 million BTC, or about 78.5% of circulating supply, and all in profit—is a more reliable gauge of scarcity than exchange balances.

Do miners still move the market?

For years, mining was shorthand for downside risk. Yet with ETF and treasury flows now dominating, their influence may be far more negligible than many assume.

“For the Bitcoin network, that sell side I mentioned before, I’ve got some charts… you just got to keep zooming in to see it because it looks like the zero line. It’s so small compared to old hand selling, ETF flows. So I would say that the halving doesn’t matter. And it hasn’t mattered, I would say for a couple of cycles. That’s one of those narratives that I think is dead.”

The roughly 450 BTC issued daily by miners is negligible compared with the revived supply from long-term holders, which can reach 10,000–40,000 BTC per day in peak rallies. This imbalance illustrates why miner flows no longer define market structure.

From cycles to liquidity regimes

Asked whether Bitcoin still respects its four-year cycle or has shifted into a liquidity-driven regime, James pointed to structural pivots in adoption.

“There’s been two major pivot points in the world of Bitcoin. The first one was the 2017 all-time high… The end of 2022 or the start of 23, that is where Bitcoin became a much more mature asset. Nowadays, Bitcoin responds to the world, rather than the world respond to Bitcoin.”

Analysis supports this view, noting that volatility compression and the rise of ETFs and derivatives have shifted Bitcoin into a more index-like role in global markets. It also stressed that liquidity conditions, not halving cycles, now set the pace.

Realized Price and new bear-market floors

Traditionally, the realized price acted as a reliable cycle diagnostic. Fidelity’s models suggest post-halving corrections occur 12–18 months after the event. James, however, argued that the metric is now outdated—and that investors should watch where the marginal cost bases cluster instead.

“Typically a bear market ends when the price comes down to the realized price. Now, I think the realized price is somewhere around 52,000. But I actually think that metric is outdated because it includes Satoshi and lost coins… I don’t think Bitcoin goes back down to 30K. If we would have a bear market right now, I think we would go down to something like 80,000. That to me is where bear market floors would start to form. 75–80K, something like that.”

Their data show a clustering of cost bases around $74,000–$80,000—covering ETFs, corporate treasuries, and actual market averages—indicating that this range now anchors potential bear-market floors.

MVRV and the limits of metrics

By contrast, MVRV Z-Score has not broken, but its thresholds have drifted with market depth and instrument mix. James advised flexibility.

“I think all the metrics are still reliable, but the past thresholds are not reliable. People need to think about the metrics as a source of information, not as an indicator that’s going to tell you the answer. It’s easy to spot a blow-off top when all metrics are through the roof. What’s really hard to spot is when the bull market just runs out of steam and rolls over.”

Their data shows MVRV cooling near +1σ and then plateauing, rather than reaching historical extremes—reinforcing James’s view that context beats fixed cut-offs.

Sovereign flows and custody risk

As sovereign wealth funds and pensions consider exposure, concentration risk has become a key concern. James acknowledged that Coinbase holds most of the Bitcoin, but argued that proof-of-work offsets systemic risk.

“If there’s one area that’s probably the biggest concentration risk, it would be Coinbase, simply because they custody pretty much all of the Bitcoin from the ETFs. But because Bitcoin uses proof of work, it doesn’t actually matter where the coins are… There’s no threshold of risk that breaks the system. The market just sorts itself out.”

Data confirms that Coinbase serves as custodian for most US spot ETFs, illustrating the degree of concentration and why James frames it as a market rather than a security risk.

Options, ETFs, and U.S. dominance

James pointed to derivatives as the decisive factor in Vanguard’s potential entry into ETF and tokenized markets.

“The most important thing is actually got nothing to do with the ETFs themselves. It’s actually the options market being built on top of them… As of October 2024, IBIT started tearing ahead of all the others. It is now the only one seeing appreciable inflows. The US has like 90% dominance in terms of ETF holdings.”

Market analysis shows BlackRock’s IBIT capturing most of AUM share after launching options in late 2024, with US ETFs commanding nearly 90% of global flows—underscoring derivatives as the actual driver of market dynamics. IBIT dominance aligns with reports of US ETFs shaping almost all new inflows, reinforcing the country’s outsized role.

Closing thoughts

“Everybody is always looking for the perfect metric to predict the future. There is no such thing. The only thing you can control is your decisions. If it goes down to 75, make sure you have a plan for that. If it goes up to 150, make sure you have a plan for that as well.”

James argued that preparing strategies for downside and upside scenarios is the most practical way to navigate volatility through 2026 and beyond.

His analysis suggests that Bitcoin’s four-year halving cycle may no longer define its trajectory. ETF inflows and sovereign-scale capital have introduced new structural drivers, while long-term holder behavior remains the key constraint.

Metrics like Realized Price and MVRV require reinterpretation, with $75,000–$80,000 emerging as the likely floor in a modern bear market. For institutions, the focus in 2026 should shift toward liquidity regimes, custody dynamics, and the derivatives markets now forming on top of ETFs.