Bitcoin is trading above $60,000, and the current cycle under way since the 2024 halving is showing the weakest performance on record.

According to blockchain media outlet U.Today on June 29 local time, bitcoin is down 6 percent over the past week and stayed in a downtrend throughout June.

The key is returns after the halving. Bitcoin has typically posted strong gains after a halving as expectations of reduced supply combined with inflows of demand. A halving occurs about every four years, or once every 210,000 blocks, and cuts new supply in half. The market has treated this as a bullish factor due to a supply shock.

Compared with past cycles, the current move is more unusual. Bitcoin price performance is compared using returns over 1,460 days with the halving day as the baseline. In previous cycles, a so-called "overheating" phase appeared right after the halving, followed by speculative demand and sharp price rises. A "disillusionment" phase followed with a steep correction and sideways trading, and then an accumulation phase of bottoming and recovery ahead of the next halving repeated the pattern.

In the current cycle, the traditional early rally has effectively not appeared. Bitcoin stayed in a range for some time and then fell, appearing to move straight into the disillusionment stage without the usual overheating phase. The market is voicing concerns that this is the "worst halving cycle in bitcoin history."

Notably, even investors who bought bitcoin at the 2024 halving have entered a loss zone. The current return curve has fallen below the baseline, suggesting that investors who bought bitcoin at the time of the 2024 halving are in net losses. The report said this is unusual.

The difference from the previous cycle is also clear. In the cycle after the prior halving, returns gradually slowed but the overall period was still positive. While that 1,460-day journey ended at a benchmark price of $63,514 as of April 2024, this cycle has been pushed below the baseline from the start, showing a different pattern from the past.

The market is citing both macro variables and corporate-driven uncertainty as reasons for the recent weakness. Mike Novogratz (마이크 노보그라츠), CEO of Galaxy, said bitcoin is being affected by a crisis surrounding Strategy, a major corporate holder of bitcoin, and concerns about the possibility of interest rate hikes. Unlike in the past when reduced supply alone supported price increases, he said worries about the macro environment and large holders are playing a bigger role in this cycle.

In this situation, the market's next focus is whether the halving effect will recover. The key variable remains whether bitcoin will move into the next accumulation phase and build a structural bottom as it has in the past, or enter a new phase in which the post-halving formula itself has weakened.

So far this is the worst halving cycle in Bitcoin history pic.twitter.com/dmbY8bZNOj