The crypto market has changed, and experts say relying on the traditional 4-year halving cycle could leave investors poorly positioned in this new environment.

Pseudonymous crypto researcher Viktor argued in an essay on Substack that the long-believed 4-year cycle, popularized by Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) halving schedule and past altcoin seasons, is now outdated.

Many traders anticipated a 2021-style altcoin boom in early 2025, but instead, they've been met with a sustained decline in altcoin/BTC ratios.

He explains that macroeconomic conditions now drive crypto more than ever.

Instead of neat, predictable cycles, the market moves in response to broader risk-on or risk-off sentiment, often tied to the S&P 500, inflation trends, regulatory changes, or geopolitical catalysts like ETF approvals and election outcomes.

In this structure, Bitcoin may lead brief market-wide rallies, but true altcoin outperformance windows are narrow and sector-specific.

The days of euphoric, prolonged alt seasons appear to be over, replaced by sharp, short-lived runs followed by extended underperformance or slow bleed outs.

Why It Matters: Viktor says investors should focus on identifying macro risk-on windows, which typically emerge once or twice a year.

These windows allow a handful of narratives, such as meme coins, AI tokens, or alt-L1s, to sharply outperform.

But mistiming them or overexposing to lagging coins can result in serious underperformance.

He warns against the outdated assumption that Bitcoin gains automatically rotate into alts.

Today, most alts don’t follow a synchronized boom-bust pattern, instead, they grind down, even as Bitcoin trends up.

That's why selective exposure and timing are now more important than simply holding through the cycle.

Also Read: Are You Up On Your Bitcoin, ETH, XRP Holdings? ‘Take Out Enough,’ Prominent Whale Cautions

He focuses on Pepe (CRYPTO: PEPE) as one of the few coins that performed well across two consecutive risk-on windows and XRP (CRYPTO: XRP), which skipped multiple cycles before breaking out significantly.

This shows that some coins can outperform far outside expected windows, but those examples are the exception, not the rule.

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