You shouldn't view it as a cycle but rather as a liquidity phase.

In early 2017, the crypto market experienced a massive liquidity boost, rewarding anyone who had previously bought altcoins when liquidity was extremely low. Prior to this, those holding alts suffered significant losses repeatedly due to liquidity deaths.

However, after the 2017 boom, Ethereum peaked against Bitcoin and never recovered. If you bought ETH at or near its all-time highs in 2017, you never regained profitability against Bitcoin if you held long-term. ETH/BTC hit around 0.12 in 2017 and never fully recovered. Anyone who bought Ethereum during the 2018-2019 bear market generally got destroyed unless they perfectly timed the bottom around 0.02 ETH/BTC. Only those buying at this precise bottom before the liquidity surge in 2020 and 2021 saw substantial gains, with Ethereum rising to the high 0.08s—a roughly 4x gain relative to Bitcoin. New crypto trends during this period could still generate profits, but older crypto trends became significantly less profitable.

Another major liquidity injection occurred in 2021, driven initially by genuine market interest but sustained primarily through entities like FTX borrowing heavily with fake collateral, ultimately inflating asset values artificially.

Now, in 2025, it's clear there isn't another similar liquidity phase coming for altcoins. Many people mistakenly assume history will repeat itself without understanding the underlying reasons. The enormous liquidity boost from crypto adoption by Wall Street has already occurred. Expecting another major altcoin rally based solely on past cycles overlooks the fundamental mechanics that drove those gains. The conditions have fundamentally changed, and without new liquidity, previous levels of profitability against Bitcoin won't return for alts.