22 Feb 2022: According to Huobi co-founder Du Jun Bitcoin is quite likely to enter the bear market soon and the next rally may not happen till early 2025. This comes from the observing the past trend of the cryptocurrency market which is highly influenced by “halving” .

Halving is a key feature of bitcoin, and refers to cutting in half of the amount of cryptocurrency that so-called miners receive as a reward for validating transactions. So, Halving basically reduces the supply and boosts prices. According to the past data, last halving took place in 2016 and 2020, and crypto analysts expect the next one to take place in 2024.

A bull market occurred in 2017 and in 2021, and so the next one is likely to happen around a year after the 2024 halving.

”If this circle continues, we are now at the early stage of a bear market," Du told CNBC's Arjun Kharpal, according to the network's translation. Du co-founded Huobi, a cryptocurrency exchange originally based in China.

Yet he added: "It is really hard to predict exactly, because there are so many other factors which can affect the market as well such as geopolitical issues including war, or recent COVID.”

"Following this cycle, it won't be until end of 2024 to beginning of 2025 that we can welcome next bull market on bitcoin.”

Crypto prices have nosedived since November, when bitcoin hit a record high of close to $69,000. The cryptocurrency was down 1.8% to $37,683 on Monday morning on the Coinbase exchange.

Both cryptos and tech stocks have been hit hard by the Federal Reserve's plans to steeply increase the interest rates in 2022, given that both asset classes were boosted by central bank stimulus over the previous two years.

Some investors are expecting another “bitcoin winter”  which is a period where prices drop and the take a while to recover.The last such winter occurred between late 2017 and the middle of 2019, when bitcoin fell from around $20,000 to below $4,000.