Morning Minute: Is Crypto’s 4-Year Cycle Over?

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.

GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors slightly lower; Bitcoin at $121,500
• ZEC continues to lead top movers, up 19% to $230
• JPMorgan says SOL ETFs will attract less demand than BTC & ETH
• Roger Ver agrees to pay $48M to end crypto tax fraud case
• Aster airdrop portal opens today ahead of 14th airdrop date; Monad opens portal on the 14th

💸 Arthur Hayes Says The 4-Year Cycle Is Dead

One of the most important and imminent questions for crypto investors – is the 4-year cycle over?

Arthur Hayes says yes.

📌 What Happened

In hist latest blog “Long Live the King,” Hayes reviews prior peaks and busts and says they coincided with tightening or easing of fiat liquidity, not the halving date itself.

His core thesis is that 2014, 2018 and 2022 drawdowns tracked monetary tightening, while expansions coincided with bull phases.

Looking forward to 2025, he believes that with policy tilting easier and spot-ETF demand now a structural bid, the market’s path should be governed by liquidity cycles.

Which means shallower, liquidity-driven pullbacks rather than a time-boxed bear market.

🗣️ What They’re Saying

“Listen to our monetary masters in Washington and Beijing. They clearly state that money shall be cheaper and more plentiful. Therefore, Bitcoin continues to rise in anticipation of this highly probable future. The king is dead, long live the king!” – Arthur Hayes in “Long Live the King”

🧠 Why It Matters

While Hayes can often be verbose and at times hard to follow, his argument in this blog post cuts pretty straight to the point.

He specifically calls out bullish liquidity drivers including:

• Trump stating he wants to run the economy hot and outgrow the debt
• Trump lowering the cost of housing to release trillions in trapped housing equity
• Deregulation of banks enabling increased loans to critical industries

Overall, that means lower interest rates and a higher money supply.

And that’s a prime environment for Bitcoin to continue to run.

This is exactly in line with the debasement trade logic as well.

And in line with my personal view.

My personal comp for Bitcoin’s near future is the gold run from 2004 to 2010.

Six straight years of up only.

You know what happened in 2004? The gold ETFs were approved.

With this line of thought, 2004 gold = 2024 Bitcoin.

So maybe stop worrying about four-year cycles and let the roaring 20s roar…

🌎 Macro Crypto and Memes

A few Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

• Crypto majors are slightly red; BTC -1% at $121,500, ETH -1% at $4,340, BNB -2% at $1,265, SOL -1% at $221
• ZEC (+19%), TAO (+17%) and LTC (+12%) led top movers
• ZEC is up over 140% in the past two weeks on the back of new Grayscale access and support from Naval
• The BTC ETFs saw another $198M in net inflows yesterday, keeping their 8-day inflow streak; ETH saw net outflows, breaking its streak
• Coinbase and Mastercard are each in talks to buy stablecoin startup BVNK for ~$2B
• Cynthia Lummis showcased a bill to make Bitcoin transactions under a certain amount tax free
• Roger Ver agreed to pay $48M to end U.S. tax-fraud case, with prosecutors set to drop charges under a tentative deferred-prosecution deal
• Luxembourg’s sovereign wealth fund allocated about $8M into Bitcoin ETFs (1% of its fund), marking the first Eurozone state investor to add BTC exposure
• Crypto.com’s prediction-market effort hit a Nevada court setback, with the same judge that allowed Kalshi to operate denying crypto dot com

In Corporate Treasuries / ETFs

In Memes

• Memecoin leaders are mixed; DOGE +1%, Shiba -1%, PEPE +1%, PENGU -1%, BONK -1%, TRUMP -1%, SPX +1%, and FARTCOIN -1%
• 90% of traders who bridged from Sol to BNB chasing the meme SZN lost money according to Whale Guru

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Here’s a rundown of major token, protocol and airdrop news from the day:

• Monad announced its airdrop claim portal will open Oct 14
• Jupiter Perps upgraded its leverage to allow up to 250x longs on Bitcoin, ETH and SOL
• Hyperswap DEX announced 75% of revenue will be used for buybacks
• Myriad crossed $20M in lifetime volume
• Yeet kicked off its Built for Big Moments tournament

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:

• NFT leaders were mostly red; Punks even at 48.4 ETH, Pudgy -1% at 9.4, BAYC even at 8.81 ETH; Hypurr’s -1% at 1,248 HYPE
• Doodles (+6%) were notable top mover
• Good Vibes Club announced that the new Vibe Strategy token (VIBESTR) would become their official project token along with a 69 ETH buy for their treasury (VIBESTR at $8M and 2nd highest strategy token)
• Art Blocks Curated’s final project ‘Quine’ opened up for bidding
• A Beeple 1/1 ‘REAL ART’ sold for $200,600