"This time it will be different" is probably the most Jim Cramer-ish phrase that can be said in crypto, and the one that has most often aged like milk, and turned out to be wrong the most often.

It's most often been used to say that this time the cycles won't work. The market won't follow its usual 4 year cycles, because this time it will be priced in, or too many people know about it, etc...

Or "this time Bitcoin will truly go to $0", "this time there won't be a bull market because of macros", "this time the bear market will last close to a decade because of macros", "this time nobody is gonna buy Bitcoin", "this time alts won't see their usual big upside", "the alt market will be dead this time because most alts will be dead", etc...

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Anyone who has been here more than a few years, has probably heard a lot of these, and has seen it being proven wrong each cycle.

I've been here for a decade. It started to pop up in 2016, but really became a more often seen narrative after 2017.

But it was really before the 2021 bull run that it became a popular take and popular narrative, not just on the sub, but in the media, to warn people not to expect big returns in 2021, and that it's already all priced in since most people in this market have already heard about the halving and 4 year cycles, since it's now been talked about in the media in places like MSNBC, WSJ, The Economist, Bloomberg, Marketwatch, etc...

And yet, it was proven wrong, and then again in the following cycle. Not even flinching from the macro economic turmoils, the war in Ukraine, or the two black swan events.

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Now each cycle hasn't been exactly identical, but they have always followed the same general pattern and the 4 year cycles.

They keep having lower ATHs, with the intensity tapering off, and follow the same natural progression.

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What would it take for the cycles to break and for "this time" to be truly different?

Apart from a meteor hitting the earth, or a nuclear war (since even a pandemic wasn't enough), there is a more realistic and less earth shattering events that could actually break the cycle.

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Why we get such strong cycles:

First, you have to understand how the cycles work, and why they are so strong in this market.

This is the first asset in history that has ever been tied to an algorithm at the core of its function and its tokenomics. Whereas speculative, macro-economic, and even micro-economic functions are not tied to its core, and have more of a peripheral effect.

The value of Bitcoin starts with mining, and the mining rewards. Which is what it costs to mine Bitcoin, and more importantly, what it costs to initially translate Bitcoin into fiat and into real world value into paying for mining related costs. On top of affecting the supply function, the cost of that supply, and the Bitcoin market from the very start.

There is still a strong speculative side, but even the speculative side is affected by having to take this function into account, along with possible psychological self fulfilled prophecies. This could actually amplify the effect of the halving, since there is more money to be made by going by the path of least resistance for traders, rather than going against the current.

Bitcoin has been able to affect the entire crypto market with its core algorithm, mining function, and tokenomics, because it has been the vastly dominant coin in this market, to the point that the rest of the market takes a lot of its cues from it.

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TL;DR: here's exactly how to break the cycles:

There is really only one way to realistically and more easily break this cycle in this market (barring an apocalyptic event), and for "this time" to be different, and that's for Bitcoin to lose its dominance on the crypto market.

The more it loses its dominance, and the more another alt-coin can affect the market, the less Bitcoin's tokenomics and halving function will have an effect in creating strong cycles that overwhelm any other outside effect.

"This time" will be different when Bitcoin is no longer dominant. Either that, or "this time" will be a little different, if Bitcoin doesn't necessarily become just another alt, but loses just enough of its dominance.

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