The Falling Stone: Bitcoin and the Cycles of Hope

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The dust settles slow on these digital plains, and a man can’t help but watch the tumbleweeds roll. Bitcoin, they call it, a promise whispered on the wind, has fallen hard these past months. More than half its value, gone like a summer rain. It’s climbed a bit since the low, mind you, but still hangs below the heights it once knew. A man can feel the worry in the air, the quiet desperation of those who put their faith—and their savings—in this new kind of gold.

This dip, it’s the biggest since ’22. Feels like a pattern repeating, a cycle turning. Some say it’s just the big players, shuffling the deck, betting against the little man. Others believe it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, the smart money running ahead of the storm. A trader watches, and a trader waits. The question isn’t whether it’ll fall further, but how far, and when. History, if you listen close, offers a kind of answer, though it’s never a sure thing.

The Weight of Past Falls

This isn’t the first time Bitcoin has known hardship. It’s stumbled before, and it’ll stumble again. Looking back, this current collapse ranks as the seventh-largest in its short life. The others, they were deeper, steeper falls, but that doesn’t mean this one won’t sting. Sometimes, a quick rebound follows a dip, a burst of hope. But more often, it’s a long, slow grind through a bear market, a test of a man’s endurance.

The speed of this fall is telling. Previous recoveries came swiftly, within months. This one’s been slower, dragging on for nearly five months since the peak. It’s like a wounded animal, limping along, taking its time to heal. And then there’s the cycle itself, the four-year rhythm that seems to govern Bitcoin’s fate. Since ’13, it’s peaked around every four years, a pattern some attribute to coincidence, others to the halving—the periodic cut in the reward for mining new coins. But a man can’t help but wonder if it’s just the herd, stampeding towards the predictable, selling high and buying low, creating the very pattern they expect.

The table below shows the scars of past cycles, the depth of the falls, the length of the winters.

Cycle Peak Date Cycle Trough Date Days Total Drawdown
11/29/2013 1/14/2015 411 87.7%
12/17/2017 12/15/2018 363 84.3%
11/10/2021 11/21/2022 376 77.6%

If history holds true, Bitcoin could fall further, perhaps down to 70 or 80 percent of its peak. It could be months before it hits bottom, a long, cold winter for those who hold on. But the land is changing, and a man must consider the new winds blowing.

A Shift in the Soil?

There are signs that this cycle might be different. Bitcoin is no longer the wildcat scheme it once was. Wall Street has arrived, and with it, a new kind of money. The launch of those exchange-traded funds, those ETFs, has opened the floodgates. Institutional investors, the big players, are buying in. Even the government, they’re holding Bitcoin now. It’s a bigger market, a more stable foundation.

Old Man Hougan at Bitwise, he suggests this downturn might have started even earlier if not for all that money flowing into those ETFs. It’s a cushion, a buffer against the fall. We might be closer to the bottom than we think, perhaps only thirteen months into this cycle. There’s other talk too, of the Federal Reserve cutting rates, and of a new chairman who favors these digital currencies. It’s a changing landscape, a new era dawning.

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It’s too early to call the bottom, of course. But it might be worth a look, a small wager on the future. History suggests a long winter ahead, but there are signs that this time, the spring might come sooner. A man must weigh the risks, and trust his gut. And remember, even in the darkest of times, there is always hope, a glimmer of light on the horizon.

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2026-02-13 15:02