🍕 Everything starts with a pizza...
Today is May 22, 2025, which is also the Bitcoin Pizza Day that has circulated in the crypto community for many years.
Five years ago, on May 22, 2010, a programmer bought two pizzas in Florida for 10,000 bitcoins. At that time, BTC was just a digital toy in the geek circle, worth nothing. But now? Ten thousand BTC is equivalent to... I've never seen such a large number.
This is the charm of Bitcoin: from the naive attempt of exchanging pizzas for coins to now standing at $100,000, with a total market value approaching $20 trillion. It not only supports the core narrative of the crypto world but also prompts the entire world to rethink what 'money' really is.
But do you really understand:
Why is its cycle always four years?
Why does a bull market often follow a halving?
In the upcoming time, I will take you through the most insane, real, brutal, and irresistible financial evolution story of the past decade.
One, how did Bitcoin gradually step into the public eye?
When discussing Bitcoin, we cannot bypass its rollercoaster ride over the past decade.
At first, it was just an experimental asset among geeks, and no one took it seriously. But did you think the story was just a small matter? No, every market wave, every collapse, every regulatory hammer is a requisite course for Bitcoin to move towards the mainstream.
Come, let’s sort out the key timeline:
2010: A programmer exchanged 10,000 BTC for two pizzas, marking Bitcoin's first real-world application. Soon after, Mt. Gox went online, and market pricing began.
2011: It first broke $1, but the exchange was hacked, crashing to $2, completing the first round of bubble burst.
2013: The Cyprus banking crisis boosted Bitcoin's safe-haven narrative, soaring to $1,163 by the end of the year. But regulation hit hard, with China ordering financial institutions to cease participation, halving the price.
2014–2015: Mt. Gox collapsed, Bitcoin fell to over $200, entering its first winter. However, infrastructure was quietly solidifying during this period.
2016–2017: After the second halving, Bitcoin sparked a nationwide frenzy, peaking at $20,000 by the end of 2017. Then, in 2018, the market reversed, the ICO bubble burst, and it fell back to $3,000.
2020–2021: Pandemic + monetary easing + halving + Tesla + PayPal... Bitcoin soared again, reaching a record high of $69,000 in November 2021.
2022: Interest rate hikes + FTX collapse, the entire market hit the brakes, and Bitcoin fell to as low as $15,500.
2023–2025: The market is warming up, and after the fourth halving, it broke $100,000, with institutions, ETFs, and state funds taking turns entering, making Bitcoin the protagonist in the crypto world once again.
This is Bitcoin's ten-year journey from niche to mainstream - every major rise and fall is a trial on its path to maturity.
Two, Bitcoin's bull and bear cycles: halving is the fuse, the market is the story.
To understand Bitcoin's price patterns, you must grasp two things: one is halving, and the other is cycles. These two elements are almost like DNA, etched into Bitcoin's growth path.
About every four years, Bitcoin's block reward automatically halves. Initially, a block had a reward of 50 BTC, which then changed to 25, 12.5, 6.25... until the fourth halving completed in April 2024, and now only 3.125 BTC are produced every 10 minutes.
This is Bitcoin's unique deflationary monetary policy - it brings a supply shock every four years, and no one can change it, not even if you are the president or the Federal Reserve.
And after each halving, Bitcoin's price almost starts to surge like a scripted play.
Let me walk you through the data:
Is this some kind of mysticism? Not really.
Supply has decreased, demand remains, and prices naturally push higher. Moreover, as market capitalization grows and growth slows, each cycle's increase does indeed diminish, but the logic of the market has never changed.
However, the halving is just a trigger; what really determines the thickness of your wallet is whether you can survive through bulls and bears.
This is the magic of cycles, and it's also where Bitcoin hits hard: no one can navigate through four cycles of bulls and bears empty-handed; those who survive have basically developed iron lungs.
Three, what stage is Bitcoin currently in?
Standing on the timeline of May 2025, if you ask me, at what stage is Bitcoin now? I would say - we are experiencing the mid-point of its fourth bull market.
Since the beginning of 2025, Bitcoin has at one point broken through the $100,000 mark, reaching a high of $109,000, with various traditional financial players - ETFs, asset management institutions, and even some national-level funds entering the market.
This bull market is somewhat different.
Previously, the rise was narrative-driven; this time, it's about the repricing of asset status.
Bitcoin has now transformed from a speculative asset in 2017 to a strategic asset in 2025. This change means that while extreme fluctuations will still occur, the probability of a significant price drop is decreasing; the upward potential may not be as exaggerated, but the buying support during corrections is stronger, the bubbles are thinner, and the fundamentals are sturdier.
On-chain data corroborates this:
The proportion of long-term holders is at an all-time high, more and more people are choosing to HODL rather than speculate.
The pressure from miners has significantly decreased, and they can still maintain their hash power after the halving, indicating they are also looking at the long term.
The BTC balance on exchanges continues to decline, and holders do not want to sell, indicating that supply is becoming increasingly tight.
So, this is not the last train of the bull market; rather, it is a bull market in progress.
What matters most to you is not predicting how much BTC can rise, but rather thinking clearly - are you willing to use your assets to participate in the process of 'reconstructing power' within this financial system?
If you are willing, don't fear short-term fluctuations. If you're not willing, that's okay; at least you understand this game.