Bottom of this cycle
$37,369 - $58,525
Expected between July 2026 and January 2027
- Drawdown from the previous top
- 70% – 53%
The Bitcoin cycle
Roughly every four years, bitcoin's issuance is cut in half, and four times now the price has responded with the same pattern: a long climb, a top, and a fall that gives most of it back. This page explains why that happens and what can be measured about it — without promising it will happen again.
The halving: supply cut in two
Bitcoin rewards whoever validates transactions with new coins. Every 210,000 blocks — roughly four years — that reward is cut in half. Nobody decides this: it was written into the protocol in 2009 and executes on its own.
The result is that new supply decreases in steps, and the schedule for those steps is fixed in advance. It is the single most important variable in bitcoin that depends on no one: demand is a mystery, issuance is a calendar.
560 days to the next halving.
A halving occurs at a specific block height, not on a calendar date. Future halvings are estimates that shift with the network's hash rate, so they are read with a margin of error.
Four cycles, measured
A cycle here is not a hunch: it is defined by a top located in the window that follows each halving, and the bottom that comes after it. On that definition you can measure how far the price fell to reach each bottom, and by what multiple it expanded from that bottom to the next top.
Every top has landed between 200 and 800 days after a halving. Pinpointing tops inside that window, rather than by eye, is what stops the model mistaking the start of a new cycle for the end of the previous one.
Cycles: how far it fell, how far it multipliedEvery bottom and top located from the halving calendar, and the law their multiples follow.
Four cycles are four observations. The bottom→top multiple law is the steadiest of the four — its ratio varies by 6% — but the top's price depends mostly on where the bottom lands, and that bottom has not happened yet. The dates are six-month windows for the same reason. The cycles a halving dates have in fact bottomed within six weeks of each other and topped within seven, but three cycles agreeing that closely is a trick of small numbers, not a date we can hold you to.
Every bottom and top located from the halving calendar, and the law their multiples follow.
Four cycles are four observations. The bottom→top multiple law is the steadiest of the four — its ratio varies by 6% — but the top's price depends mostly on where the bottom lands, and that bottom has not happened yet. The dates are six-month windows for the same reason. The cycles a halving dates have in fact bottomed within six weeks of each other and topped within seven, but three cycles agreeing that closely is a trick of small numbers, not a date we can hold you to.
| Bottom | Top | Drawdown How far the price fell from the previous top to reach this bottom. | Multiple How many times the price multiplied from this bottom up to the top on the same row. The multiple law. Each cycle multiplies less than the last, and it does so regularly: the logarithm of the multiple keeps roughly 0.69 of the previous one, cycle after cycle. Applied to the last, the next multiple comes out at ×4.18. Ratio between consecutive logarithms: 0.750 · 0.648 · 0.678 → 0.69 ± 0.043 |
|---|---|---|---|
| $2.1118 Nov 2011 | $1,1354 Dec 2013 | −93% | ×539 |
| $175.6414 Jan 2015 | $19,64116 Dec 2017 | −85% | ×112 |
| $3,18515 Dec 2018 | $67,5428 Nov 2021 | −84% | ×21.2 |
| $15,7589 Nov 2022 | $124,8246 Oct 2025 | −77% | ×7.9 |
Top of the next cycle
$156,379 - $244,911
Expected between June and December 2029
- Multiple from the previous bottom
- ×4.18
Each cycle multiplies less than the last
Lined up, the bottom-to-top multiples are ×539, ×112, ×21.2, ×7.9. The consistency is not in the raw numbers, which collapse, but in how they collapse: the logarithm of each multiple keeps an almost constant fraction of the one before.
That fraction sits at roughly 0.69, with little deviation across three transitions. Applied to the last observed multiple, it projects ×4.18 for the cycle under way. Three data points are very few data points: this is an observed pattern, not an immutable law.
That the return damps cycle by cycle has an unromantic but reasonable reading: moving a larger asset takes more new capital each time. The pattern rhymes, damped, and we measure it.
×539
2013
×112
2017
×21.2
2021
×7.9
2025
×4.2
2029
What none of this tells you
All of the above describes where the price has been. No part of it describes where it will go. Four cycles are four observations, and a pattern over four observations is a description carrying enormous uncertainty, not a prediction.
The halving is real and its effect on supply is arithmetic. What is not arithmetic is the price's response: that depends on a demand nobody can put on a calendar. A cycle can arrive late, fall short, or not arrive.
None of this is financial advice. The tools below are ways of looking at the price's history in an orderly way, and that is the whole of their reach.
More tools on the same data
Bitcoin Rainbow Chart
Where bitcoin's price sits, colored from cheap to expensive, based on its full history.
Bitcoin investment calculator
How much you would have today buying according to an investment plan.
Satoshi converter
Sats to dollars and dollars to sats at the live price.
Bitcoin vs S&P 500 vs Gold
Bitcoin benchmarked against gold, the S&P 500 and inflation.
Monthly returns
Every month since 2011 in a grid, and the test for whether the calendar explains any of it.
Frequently asked questions
Why does Bitcoin have four-year cycles?
Because every 210,000 blocks — about four years — bitcoin's issuance is cut in half, an event called the halving. New supply falls in steps on a known schedule, and the four times it has happened the price has answered with the same shape: a long climb to a top, then a deep fall. The cycle is the observed consequence of that schedule, not a rule of the market.
What exactly is the Bitcoin halving?
The reward paid to whoever validates a block is divided by two. It started at 50 BTC per block in 2009 and stands at 3.125 BTC after the April 2024 halving. It is written into the protocol and executes on its own, with nobody deciding anything: it is the one relevant variable in bitcoin that is known ahead of time.
When is the next Bitcoin halving?
The fifth is estimated for the first half of 2028. The exact date cannot be fixed, because a halving happens at a specific block height rather than on a calendar date, and the speed at which blocks are mined varies with the network's hash rate. The countdown on this page is recalculated on every build.
Does each Bitcoin cycle rise less than the last?
So far yes, and quite regularly. The bottom-to-top multiples have fallen cycle after cycle, and they have done so at a measurable rate: the logarithm of each multiple keeps an almost constant fraction of the one before. The reasonable explanation is that moving an ever larger asset takes ever more new money. With three measured transitions, it is an observed regularity and not a law.
Can the cycle be used to predict Bitcoin's price?
No. Four cycles are four observations: enough to describe a pattern, far short of what is needed to predict with confidence. The halving affects supply arithmetically, but the price's response depends on a demand nobody can put on a calendar. A cycle can arrive late, fall short, or not arrive.
Where do the numbers on this page come from?
From CoinMetrics' complete daily price series, refreshed every morning UTC. The tops, bottoms, drawdowns and multiples are computed when the page is built, from that series and the halving calendar; no figure is written by hand. That is why what you read here and what the charts draw cannot disagree.
Is this financial advice?
No. It is a description of what the price has done, with its assumptions in view. Nothing on Bitcoinomics is a recommendation to buy or sell.