Experts Break Down the Key Drivers Behind Bitcoin’s Potential Bull Run Through 2027

For much of Bitcoin’s history, price action has been framed through the lens of the four-year halving cycle. More recently, however, this view has been challenged by a new narrative, one focused on global liquidity.

According to this view, instead of Bitcoin’s next major bull phase consisting of a post-halving surge, followed by a price collapse, Bitcoin rises on increased liquidity, experiencing a multi-year bull run.

A big factor driving this narrative is the recent rapid shift in institutional adoption of digital assets. As Michael Saylor, Chairman of Bitcoin treasury company Strategy, recently put it when discussing this topic at this year’s Binance Blockchain Week:

Twelve months ago, banks were hostile to Bitcoin; now, eight out of the top ten U.S. banks are engaged in crypto lending.

That single sentence encapsulates the broader shift underway. Bitcoin’s next move may no longer be dictated solely by programmed scarcity, but by an ongoing surge in institutional demand.

Why the Four-Year Cycle Is Breaking Down

Halving events may still matter for long-term supply dynamics, but recent studies of long-term price patterns suggest they no longer serve as the dominant trigger of major price expansions. In fact, over the past decade, surges in global liquidity have been the primary driver of higher Bitcoin prices.

A key signal supporting this argument is stablecoin liquidity. This remains elevated, despite recent volatility in the Bitcoin market. Large pools of sidelined capital remain within the cryptocurrency ecosystem, ready for deployment once macroeconomic conditions improve.

The U.S. Treasury appears poised to add additional liquidity, given the current $90 billion surplus in the Treasury General Account. China has been steadily injecting liquidity, Japan recently announced a stimulus package of approximately $135 billion, and Canada is moving toward monetary easing.

Most importantly, the U.S. Federal Reserve has now officially halted quantitative tightening (QT), a move that historically precedes either passive or active liquidity expansion.

Policy Changes Drive Institutional Adoption

Beyond central banks, politics is re-entering the macroeconomic picture in a way that most Bitcoin holders haven’t seen. The second Trump administration has been proposing ambitious tax plans, ranging from tariff-funded "dividends" to a comprehensive overhaul of the income tax system.

Add in the prospect of a crypto-friendly Fed chair, and it’s easy to see how politics could catalyze crypto assets. Tailwinds for banking are also in motion if regulators decide to relax the Supplementary Leverage Ratio for banks once again. That’s the macro runway. The real change this time is the mix of market participants.

Mainstream financial institutions are now at the table. Spot ETFs now give pensions, endowments, and other institutional investors regulated access to BTC. Banks that once shunned cryptocurrency are now engaging in on-chain custody, lending, and structured products. As Saylor put it: "Wall Street has embraced Bitcoin; when we first traded it on our balance sheet, there were no ETFs — now BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETFs are incredibly successful."

The result is a steadier bid under the market. When it’s just retail, you get blow-off tops and ugly crashes. Once real institutional money arrives, with proper custody, compliance, and settlement in place, the whole thing starts to look less like a boom-and-bust cycle and more like a trend with staying power.

Conclusion: A Different Kind of Bull Market

Taken together, the evidence increasingly suggests that Bitcoin’s next major market phase may look structurally different from those that preceded it. While the four-year halving cycle remains relevant to long-term supply dynamics, it appears to be giving way to a broader framework in which liquidity conditions, policy decisions, and institutional positioning play a more decisive role. In that context, Bitcoin’s trajectory through 2026 and 2027 may be shaped less by discrete, event-driven rallies and more by sustained capital inflows tied to macroeconomic easing.

Several indicators reinforce this interpretation. Stablecoin liquidity remains elevated, signaling that significant on-chain capital is already in place, waiting for improved macro conditions. Globally, major economies are either injecting liquidity or preparing to do so, while the Federal Reserve’s decision to halt quantitative tightening removes a key headwind that has historically constrained risk assets. Political and regulatory shifts, ranging from potential changes to bank capital requirements to a more accommodative stance toward digital assets, add further optionality to the outlook.

What distinguishes this cycle from prior ones is not simply the presence of institutional capital, but its growing integration into market structure. Spot Bitcoin ETFs, regulated custody solutions, and bank-led lending and derivatives activity have created more durable channels for capital deployment. As a result, price discovery increasingly reflects balance-sheet decisions and portfolio allocations rather than short-term speculative excess. That does not eliminate volatility, but it may alter its character reducing the likelihood of abrupt, reflexive collapses in favor of more extended consolidation and trend formation.

None of this guarantees a prolonged bull market. Macro conditions can shift, policy support can reverse, and correlations with broader risk assets remain fluid. Still, the convergence of liquidity expansion, institutional participation, and regulatory normalization points to a market that is evolving beyond its earlier boom-and-bust identity. If Bitcoin does enter a sustained expansion over the next several years, it is likely to be driven not by narrative alone, but by the same forces that shape capital flows across global markets.