Do you remember what it felt like to be a Bitcoiner one year ago today?

Bitcoin was blasting past $120,000, with many of us expecting an explosive blow-off top in the final months of the year.

Then came the October 10 meltdown, severely altering market structure and kicking off a dreaded bear market year.

But despite all the adversity of 2026, Bitcoin has rolled with the punches and, at this point in the year, is performing better than during any previous midterm election bear market.

In this edition’s article, we examine whether 2026 has finally broken Bitcoin’s four-year cycle and what that could mean moving forward.

Other headlines this week include

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October is back, and this week marks a full calendar year since Bitcoin topped at $126,000 on October 6, 2025.

The timing is almost poetic. Bitcoin’s last three major bear markets took roughly 12 to 13 months to travel from cycle peak to ultimate bottom, averaging about 380 days.

And now, right as that bear-market clock approaches its terminus, we enter Bitcoin’s most reliably bullish month: Uptober. Of the 13 completed Octobers since 2013, 10 finished positive, with an average return of 18.5% and a median gain of 12.7%.

So here we are again. One year removed from the top, entering the window where previous Bitcoin bear markets have run out of road, just as the calendar turns to the month Bitcoin has historically liked best.

If we go by the traditional four-year cycle, this is roughly where the bottom should start taking shape. And each of Bitcoin’s three previous major bear markets ended with one final wicked flush.

Are we in for a bearish October surprise to properly align with past cycles?

But what if the bottom already came?

Since the lows in June, Bitcoin has shrugged off a full bear market’s worth of bad news: Strategy selling, the Coldcard exploit, the Liquid Network hack, and plenty more.

Benjamin Cowen made an interesting point this week. Compared with previous midterm years, Bitcoin has held up remarkably well. Historically, four-year-cycle lows have tended to arrive later in the year, usually in Q4. If the June low holds, it would be the earliest one yet.

More importantly, Cowen argues that the recent price action has shifted the burden of proof from the bulls to the bears. Bitcoin has broken the pattern of continually making lower lows, reclaimed its 20-week and 50-week moving averages, and pushed higher. That is what the end of previous Bitcoin bear markets has looked like.

Does this strength in the face of adversity mean the four-year cycle itself is becoming another Bitcoin narrative that eventually stops working?

We’ve seen supposedly ironclad rules break before. For years, one of the most repeated was that Bitcoin would never fall below the previous cycle’s all-time high.

Until it did in 2022, and then again in 2026.

From where we’re standing today, Bitcoin is still nowhere near its dollar highs. And yet this week, it managed to hit an all-time high against the Iranian rial, rising an astonishing 5,600% against the currency over the past five years.

Bitcoin can be deep in a bear market when measured in dollars and simultaneously at an all-time high when measured in another currency. One BTC still equals one BTC, but what changes is the measuring stick.

It’s a simple reminder: if something can be easily printed, eventually it will be. And over time, people will look for harder assets to preserve their wealth.

Zimbabwe offers an interesting contrast to Iran. While the country hasn’t flocked to Bitcoin, at least not yet, a nation once practically synonymous with hyperinflation has taken a very different path. Annual inflation is now down to 2.9%, below recent rates in both the U.S. and the U.K.

How did they get there? Part of the answer was recognizing the need for harder money. In 2024, Zimbabwe introduced the ZiG, a currency backed by gold and foreign reserves.

It’s not the ultimate solution, but it is a step in the right direction. More importantly, it offers another reminder that when currencies fail, people and governments eventually start looking for something harder.

Gold has filled that role for thousands of years. Today, there is another option.

Bitcoin.

It may simply be a matter of time.

Let’s keep stacking.
- Bam