Bitcoin‘s more than 30% drop from its record high underscores the volatility that has come to characterize the cryptocurrency.

Moves from previous cycles not only show how the current price swings are all part of bitcoin’s normal operating pattern but also how they may often precede a rally, according to figures compiled by CoinDesk Data for CNBC.

Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, dropped to a low of around $80,000 late last month before staging a rally and falling again this week. When bitcoin dropped to under $81,000, that represented an approximately 36% fall from its all-time high of around $126,000 hit earlier in October. As of Thursday, bitcoin was trading at over $93,000, according to Coinmetrics, a roughly 26% decline from its record high.

These price swings may seem large but they are normal in relation to bitcoin’s history.

Bitcoin’s price movement is often referred to in “cycles.” Generally, the bitcoin cycle refers to a four-year pattern of price movement that revolves around a key event known as the halving, a change to mining rewards that is written in bitcoin’s code. While there are signs that the typical timing and patterns of the cycles could be changing, the range of price movements appears to be consistent.

In the current cycle, bitcoin has already weathered a 32.7% pullback from March to August 2024 and a 31.7% decline between January and April 2025, according to CoinDesk Data.

“Looking at previous cycles, volatility of this magnitude appears consistent with long-term trends,” Jacob Joseph, senior research analyst at CoinDesk Data, told CNBC.

During the 2017 cycle, there were drawdowns of around 40% twice that year and then a 29% decline in November before bitcoin reached a new record high in December.

Looking back at the 2021 cycle, bitcoin recorded declines of 31.2% in January that year and 26% in February. There was a more than 55% correction between April and June 2021 as China banned bitcoin mining. The asset then rallied to a new high in November that year.

“While deeper mid-cycle corrections have certainly occurred, nearly all of them — aside from the mining-ban-drop in 2021 — took place within a broader bullish structure, often holding above key technical levels such as its 50-week moving average,” Joseph said.

Beginning Oct. 10, more than 1.6 million traders suffered a combined $19.37 billion erasure of leveraged positions over a 24-hour period. Many traders were forced out of their positions and the impact of that cascaded across the industry.

That effect is still being felt, according to Lucy Gazmararian, founder of Token Bay Capital.

“[It was the] biggest liquidation event in crypto’s history and that takes quite a few weeks to see the fallout from that and for the market to consolidate,” Gazmararian told “Access Middle East” on Thursday.

“It also coincided at a time when there’s a lot of concern that we are reaching the end of a bull market … so that has increased the levels of fear out there in the market.”

In the past, when the bull market ends and there is a period of depressed prices, often dubbed a “crypto winter,” bitcoin has tended to sit 70% to 80% below its all-time high. This has not yet happened. But concern about this coming to pass is weighing on investors’ minds.

“Really the timing of the drop, where we are in the cycle, that’s making investors cautious in case we do see that 80% drop,” Gazmararian said.

Meta has been hit with an EU antitrust investigation over its use of AI features in WhatsApp, as the European bloc continues to ramp up challenges to US big tech giants.

The probe will examine whether Meta’s new policy on allowing AI providers’ access to WhatsApp may breach EU competition rules, Brussels said in a statement Thursday morning.

A new policy announced by Meta in October prohibited AI providers from using a tool allowing businesses to contact customers via WhatsApp when AI is the main service offered, the European Commission said.

While businesses may still use AI tools for functions like customer support, the bloc was concerned the new policy might “prevent third party AI providers from offering their services through WhatsApp in the European Economic Area (EEA),” it added.

“The claims are baseless,” a WhatsApp spokesperson told CNBC in a statement, adding that the app’s application programming interface (API) was not designed to support AI chatbots and “puts a strain on our systems.”

“The AI space is highly competitive and people have access to the services of their choice in any number of ways, including app stores, search engines, email services, partnership integrations and operating systems,” the company added.

It comes months on from the Commission fining Google 2.95 billion euros ($3.45 billion) for breaching antitrust rules around online advertising. In April, Apple was fined 500 million euros after being found to have breached anti-steering obligations. The same month, Meta was hit with a 200 million euros fine for breaching obligations to give consumers the choice of a service that uses less of their personal data.

Fines for breaking the EU’s antitrust rules can reach as much as 10% of a company’s annual revenue. There are no dates set for the antitrust investigation to close, but previous cases have run on for years.

“We must ensure European citizens and businesses can benefit fully of this technological revolution and act to prevent dominant digital incumbents from abusing their power to crowd out innovative competitors,” said the bloc’s Commissioner for Competition Teresa Ribera.

The investigation will cover the entire EEA apart from Italy, to avoid an overlap with its own ongoing proceedings for the possible imposition of interim measures concerning Meta’s conduct.

U.S. President Donald Trump has previously threatened the EU with an investigation that could lead to tariffs for imposing fines and regulation on the country’s tech giants.

“As I have said before, my Administration will NOT allow these discriminatory actions to stand,” he said following the EU’s Google fine in September.