Galaxy’s Alex Thorn flags sub-100% upside in Bitcoin’s post-2024 halving cycle
He also pointed to a sharply lower 30-day volatility regime, while critics cite the ETF-driven pre-halving ATH as a distortion.
Galaxy research head Alex Thorn argues Bitcoin’s post-April 2024 halving cycle has delivered far less upside and materially lower realized volatility than prior halving eras. Critics counter that a spot-ETF-driven all-time high before the halving makes the comparison more contentious than in past cycles.
Key Takeaways
- Bitcoin’s post-April 2024 halving “cycle four” has shown lower upside and dampened volatility versus the 2012, 2016, and 2020 halving cycles, per Galaxy research head Alex Thorn.
- Using an April 2024 halving price near $63,000 as the baseline, Bitcoin’s all-time high above $125,000 on Oct. 5, 2025 equated to roughly 97% upside.
- Bitbo’s 30-day Bitcoin Volatility Index has stayed below 3.11% this cycle and was 1.75% at last look, versus a 9.64% spike on April 2, 2020.
- A pre-halving all-time high above $70,000 in March 2024—linked primarily to January 2024 US spot Bitcoin ETF approvals—complicates clean “post-halving” cycle comparisons.
Thorn’s “Cycle Four” Call: Lower Upside Since the April 2024 Halving
Alex Thorn, Galaxy’s head of firmwide research, has put hard numbers on a claim many desks have been debating since spot ETFs arrived: the post-April 2024 halving playbook is not producing the same magnitude of upside.
Thorn’s framework anchors the current cycle to Bitcoin’s April 2024 halving price around $63,000. On that baseline, the subsequent all-time high above $125,000 on Oct. 5, 2025 works out to about 97% upside. Thorn summarized the setup bluntly: “Cycle four is dramatically underperforming prior cycles,” and added the open question, “Is this the new normal, or is it the new normal until it isn’t?”
Even with the “weaker cycle” framing, the near-term tape cited alongside the analysis was constructive. Bitcoin traded around $74,703 at last look and was up almost 5% over seven days, according to TradingView data.
From 9,294% to 97%: How the 2012/2016/2020 Halving Cycles Compare
On Thorn’s own math, the underperformance is not subtle. Prior halving cycles delivered multi-hundred to multi-thousand percent peak gains: about 9,294% in the 2012 cycle (to roughly $1,163), about 2,950% in the 2016 cycle (to roughly $19,891), and about 761% in the 2020 cycle.
That makes the current cycle’s ~97% peak move, measured from the halving price, numerically small by historical standards. The implication is less about calling a top and more about questioning whether the halving and the four-year cycle theory still dominate price formation the way they once did.
Volatility Compression Shows Up in Bitbo’s 30-Day Gauge
The volatility regime shift is the second leg of Thorn’s argument. Bitbo’s 30-day Bitcoin Volatility Index spiked to 9.64% on April 2, 2020. In the current cycle, it has not exceeded 3.11%, a level last seen on Aug. 24, 2024. The latest 30-day estimate was 1.75%.
Fidelity Digital Assets has framed the same direction of travel as “maturation” via drawdowns. Fidelity research analyst Zack Wainwright cited prior bear markets with 80%–90% declines, while Fidelity’s analysis noted the drop to $60,000 from the all-time high above $125,000 was a decline just north of 50%. The story does not timestamp the $60,000 low, but the comparison pairs lower realized volatility with less violent peak-to-trough damage.
The main caveat is methodological, not philosophical. Critics of Thorn’s comparison point to a historic anomaly: Bitcoin printed an all-time high above $70,000 in March 2024, roughly one month before the April 2024 halving. The move was attributed primarily to January 2024 US spot Bitcoin ETF approvals, which can pull demand forward and make a halving-date baseline less clean than in earlier cycles.
Signals to Watch for Bitcoin post-2024 halving cycle underperformance
The first tell is whether realized volatility stays pinned. Bitbo’s 30-day gauge sitting near 1.75% supports the “compressed regime” thesis, but a re-test or break above the 3.11% ceiling last seen on Aug. 24, 2024 would signal turbulence returning.
Price structure matters too. The cited ~$74,703 area is the immediate reference point from publication, while the ~$60,000 level used in Fidelity’s drawdown comparison is the obvious downside marker traders will keep benchmarking against.
Finally, watch the narrative benchmark itself. If market participants increasingly treat January 2024 spot ETF approvals—and the March 2024 pre-halving ATH above $70,000—as the true catalyst window, “cycle” performance debates will keep shifting away from halving-date baselines.
What This Regime Shift Could Mean for BTC Traders in 2026
I don’t read Thorn’s numbers as a clean bearish signal. They read like a market-structure update: a post-ETF Bitcoin that can still trend, but does it with less realized volatility and smaller drawdowns than the old halving-era templates implied.
The threshold that matters is whether this stays a low-vol, lower-upside regime while price holds above the ~$74,703 area cited, because that combination would force traders to treat “cycle four underperformance” as structural rather than narrative-driven.
