Bitcoin's exponential growth cycles are shrinking dramatically, signaling potential technological maturity limits.
Opinion by: Joshua Chu, co-chair of the Hong Kong Web3 Association
When you were young, you often felt belittled for your lack of experience. Yet, our elders will simultaneously lament to us that time is on our side.
Bitcoin, like any youthful emerging tech, is the same. The early years are full of uncertainties, yet filled with the promise of boundless possibilities. Time is on our side to learn, adapt and grow.
As we enter midlife, however, blinded by early wins and growing recognition (or adoption – in the technology sense), we start chasing success and increasing wealth with increasing tunnel vision. This is precisely where Bitcoin finds itself today, finally accepted by institutions, the talk of daily news, each step celebrated but also pressured by expectations. This phase brings urgency, risk and uncontrolled panic.
As the horizon of what was once infinite opportunity narrows, the immediate moment before the end will feel so sudden and perilously finite.
Bitcoin’s rapid rise in 2025 is meeting its own midlife crisis. The exponential growth of its youth as an emerging tech is fading. Recently, CleanCore Solutions saw its shares plunge by 60% right after announcing its plan to jump on the crypto treasury bandwagon with a pivot to become a Dogecoin treasury company.
The collapse signals growing investor skepticism over speculative crypto stints, which mirrors broader challenges Bitcoin faces as it struggles to maintain momentum amid increasing market volatility, which the Forbes Cover curse may have further exacerbated.
Urgent questions about its longevity, value and purpose demand answers. Like any good legacy planning, having a will is often recommended.
What is Bitcoin’s shelf life?
Every technology has a life cycle. Bitcoin is no exception. Bitcoin remains a technology subject to the immutable laws of lifecycle dynamics. Bitcoin may have bear runs and bull runs, but the growth cycle has still begun to shrink.
To put the numbers in perspective:
The 2013 cycle saw growth at 310x
The 2017 cycle saw growth drop to 143x
The 2021 cycle saw growth contract sharply to 11x
The 2025 cycle saw growth hovering at just 2.1x
Each new cycle is about a quarter of the previous cycle, which illustrates an alarming pattern of geometric decay.
According to academic mathematical statistics, Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s paper, Bitcoin, Currencies, and Fragility, his “Bubble Model” theory is that price growth cannot keep rising indefinitely for a non-yielding asset.