How long do crypto bull markets last?
In each of the last three completed cycles, Bitcoin took about 35 months to travel from its bear market low to its next all-time high: January 2015 to December 2017, December 2018 to November 2021, and November 2022 to October 2025. That is a shade under three years every time, which is where the common "three year bull, one year bear" shorthand comes from.
Treat that number as a pattern, not a schedule. Three runs is a tiny sample. The latest was the first with US spot ETFs in the market, and it kept the same rhythm, but one test is not proof. And every cycle so far has produced smaller percentage gains than the one before it.
Right now
Not a bull market yetWhat the record actually shows
Bitcoin has completed three full cycles with reliable daily price history. Each ran from a bear market low, through a multi-year climb, to a blow-off high, then into a deep drawdown.
On daily closing prices, the lows landed in January 2015, December 2018 and November 2022, and the highs in December 2017, November 2021 and October 2025. Low to high took 35.1, 34.8 and 34.5 months. The last three completed bear markets, after the 2013, 2017 and 2021 tops, each took about 12 to 13 months from top to bottom and fell between 77% and 85%.
The latest top came on 6 October 2025, at about $126,000. By 30 June 2026 Bitcoin had fallen 53%, to about $58,500, a shallower fall than any before it and, so far, a shorter one. Whether that was the bottom is not yet known: in both 2018 and 2022, an early low was broken two to three months later.
The rhythm is close enough to four years that people map it onto the halving, which also arrives roughly every four years. The last three tops each came 17 to 18 months after a halving. Whether that is cause or coincidence is genuinely unsettled, and the halving is shown on this site as context rather than counted as a signal for exactly that reason.
Why the pattern is weaker than it looks
Three observations cannot establish a cycle. If you saw the same claim made about any other asset on a sample of three, you would dismiss it, and the honest position is that the crypto version deserves the same scepticism.
The magnitude has also shrunk every time. From low to high, Bitcoin rose about 110 times from 2015 to 2017, 21 times from 2018 to 2021, and 8 times from 2022 to 2025, and each bear market has fallen less than the last. A larger, more liquid and more institutionally held market should be expected to move less violently, which argues that past cycle shapes are a poor template for future ones.
The structure changed as well. US spot ETFs began trading in January 2024, adding a buyer with entirely different behaviour from the retail speculators who drove earlier cycles. The 2022 to 2025 run was the first to include them, and it still took about 35 months. That is one point in the pattern’s favour, not a guarantee that it survives the next change.
A more useful question than "how long"
Duration is the wrong thing to watch, because you only know the length of a bull market once it has ended. What you can observe is whether the conditions associated with one are true right now.
That is what this site does. It scores 13 live signals covering price trend, institutional flows, sentiment, retail attention and on-chain activity, and changes its answer only when one side has a clear lead. It will not tell you how long anything will last, but it will tell you, with the working shown, whether the conditions currently hold. How often that call has matched the record is set out in how accurate this tracker is.
Frequently asked questions
How long does a crypto bull market last on average?
About three years from bear market low to cycle top. Each of the last three completed cycles took roughly 35 months. Three cycles is a very small sample, so the average carries little statistical weight.
How long do crypto bear markets last?
The last three completed ones took about 12 to 13 months from top to bottom and fell between 77% and 85%. The fall from the October 2025 high reached its lowest point so far after about nine months, down 53%, and whether that was the bottom is not yet known.
Does the four-year halving cycle set the length?
The timing has lined up so far: the last three tops each came 17 to 18 months after a halving. But four halvings cannot separate cause from coincidence, and each cycle has produced a weaker echo than the last. This site tracks the halving as context and deliberately excludes it from the verdict, because a calendar cannot react to what the market is doing.
Are we in a bull market now?
That depends on live conditions rather than the calendar. The homepage scores 13 signals and gives a yes or no answer updated hourly, with every threshold disclosed.