Bitcoin’s growth engine is running out of steam

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 , 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 . 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, , his “Bubble Model” theory is that price growth cannot keep rising indefinitely for a non-yielding asset. 

Related:

When an asset becomes essentially a “faith-based” asset, market reality and discipline will eventually bring such momentum downward, where eventually, the multiplier can dip below 1, switching from a growth model to a shrinking model. No economic or speculative run can escape the natural cycles of growth followed by adjustment or decline.

The question has to be asked: Is Bitcoin nearing the edge of a cliff? Is Bitcoin’s explosive youth giving way to natural burnout that all tech must eventually face, or will there be a second wind, and the end has yet to appear on the horizon?

Crypto as a ‘faith-based’ asset

Joe Lubin, the co-founder of Ethereum, once articulated a vision of Ethereum’s value being based on “faith in the Ethereum blockchain.” , Lubin pivoted that when people believe in cryptocurrency, this factor alone will be sufficient to “snowball into something society deems valuable.” 

In the same interview, he suggested that by doing so [having faith], it would be “much like the US dollar.” His views made it seem to indicate that money, at its core, also solely relies on collective belief and trust. This view has, however, overlooked a vital nuisance of fiat currency, which, unlike Bitcoin, is supported by monetary policy, taxation, fiscal measures, and, where a government defaults on debt, austerity measures and more.

A faith-based asset will lack all such value. While faith-based assets’ value is derived solely from market demand and collective belief, fiat’s fallback is intrinsic value backed by economic structures.

Bitcoin has, to some at least, transcended being just another asset. In older narratives, Bitcoin was portrayed as a hedge against inflation, a protector from government control (at least the pre-regulation era). Realities are, however, ever-changing.

Pivot from investing in Bitcoin-as-a-product to blockchain-as-infrastructure

What stands the actual test of time is usually not the product, but the infrastructure that supports the product. Though and Netscape may have faded away, infrastructure like the internet is what has stood the test of time. 

In many ways, Bitcoin started as a revolutionary product, designed and deployed to challenge the traditional financial system. Its meteoric rise attracted millions, promising deliverance in financial freedom. 

Yet, just like any technology product, it faces natural limits. Even blockchain, the underlying Bitcoin technology, is still based on cryptographic principles. 

By contrast, blockchain infrastructure refers to physical and operational components that make blockchain networks function reliably at scale. These include network nodes (including full and validator nodes), network protocol and data storage systems that maintain and support the ecosystem

Just like any midlife crisis, Bitcoin has reached a pivotal crossroad. While and purchases are akin to Bitcoin’s graduation from university into middle management, , which is also attributed to explosive growth in its early days, hints at maturity, if not contraction. 

Recognizing this trend, OG have either divested from Bitcoin and reinvested in newer tokens like Ethereum or shifted toward infrastructure for a long-term strategy. Both trends, however, point to Bitcoin’s future. 

This transition underscores a fundamental truth — individual technologies, no matter how revolutionary, ultimately have finite lifespans, while durable infrastructure will outlive their product counterparts. 

For investors, innovators and policymakers, just as our very own receding hairline or increasing waistline serves as a reminder that a lifecycle perspective is essential to navigate Bitcoin’s own midlife phase, so too must such a perspective serve us as a guide toward the next evolution of the industry’s ecosystem. 

And perhaps,, consider this: Do you have any electronic devices in your home that are 41 years old or older? Were you even born 41 years ago? , which , will be 41 years old when those locked-up tokens become fully accessible. Reflecting on Bitcoin’s lifecycle will be vital to making informed, strategic decisions in this rapidly evolving world.  

Opinion by: Joshua Chu, co-chair of the Hong Kong Web3 Association.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.