Here's What History Says Happens Next With Bitcoin

Every four years, Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) experiences a halving, a loosely predictable event that cuts the block reward that miners earn in half. Each halving so far has kicked off a price cycle with a familiar arc, where the coin rallies, peaks, and then experiences a brutal correction. The most recent halving occurred in April 2024, and we're now close to the midpoint before the next one, which is expected around April 2028.

Right now, Bitcoin is down by 43% from its most recently set all-time high near $126,000 in October 2025. That decline fits the pattern that's played out three times before, so here's what the data suggests about what comes next.

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Learn to read the halving clock

Bitcoin's halving reduces its new coin issuance from mining by 50%. Tighter supply of coins has historically preceded price surges, but the correction that follows those surges has also been consistently harsh, and the entire process has been taking a total of four years to play out in full.

In each of its prior halving cycles, Bitcoin marked a new all-time high roughly 12 to 18 months after the halving, then declined severely. The coin's crash in early October 2025 fits neatly within that dynamic.

After the 2012 halving came a collapse of 80%, starting from late 2013 and lasting until mid-2015. The 2020 cycle shed 75% on approximately the same schedule, bottoming out in late 2022. By this time in the prior halving cycles, the good times were over, and the bad times were well underway.

In other words, the historical pattern is that the second year after the halving is pretty much always extremely painful. We're currently in that year.

What if the script has flipped?

However, there is an argument for Bitcoin not following the same pattern as before.

Spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) holding Bitcoin have been buying Bitcoin since their approval in early 2024, creating a demand floor for the coin that didn't exist before. Corporate treasuries and sovereign governments are also accumulating unlike before, locking up supply. The idea is that those new classes of holders will be less likely to dump or gobble up coins as aggressively as the market participants of the past, thereby moderating Bitcoin's downtrends (and perhaps its uptrends too).

Separately, some investors argue that Bitcoin's slide from $126,000 to around $62,000 already constitutes the correction, making now a reasonable time to start buying it. But the truth is that nobody knows with certainty whether the coin's rock-bottom prices are behind or still to come in the near term, even if the long-term picture is still strong.

That's why dollar-cost averaging -- investing a fixed amount at regular intervals no matter what Bitcoin is doing at the time -- makes sense. If Bitcoin falls further, you buy it cheaper for as long as those cheaper prices are available. Patience will always beat trying to time the inflection points of the market, so be sure to use the time on your side.

Alex Carchidi has positions in Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.