Satoshi Institute · cycle position

Where are we in the cycle?

Four time-tested gauges, read together. Each asks the same question a different way: is Bitcoin hot or cold right now? The blend at the top is one heuristic read of cycle position — useful for orientation, useless for timing.

Cycle temperature · blended

bottom · capitulationtop · euphoria
Coming with the on-chain feed. MVRV and realized price are the two indicators here that can't be computed from price alone — they need realized-cap data from an on-chain source. They drop into this same grid once that feed is wired.
Want the weekly cycle read? The blend, the on-chain layer, and what it means for accumulation get covered on the Bitcoin Alchemy podcast and in the Satoshi Institute notes.
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Price as of last data · refresh live

Heuristic orientation, not a timing model or financial advice. The blend weights four indicators equally, which is a choice, not a law. Indicators that worked across past cycles can fail in the next. Power-law, Mayer, Pi Cycle, and drawdown computed from CoinGecko daily closes; the power-law fit uses 2013–present data.

FAQ

Can Bitcoin cycles actually be predicted, or is this pattern-matching on noise?

The honest answer is: the cycles are real in the historical data, the mechanisms behind them are plausible, and none of that makes them predictive in the strong sense.

Why the cycles exist — the supply-side mechanism:

Bitcoin's halving schedule cuts the new supply issuance roughly every four years. If demand is relatively stable or growing, a step reduction in supply creates price pressure. The four-year cycle in price roughly corresponds to the four-year halving cycle. This is a structural feature of the protocol, not a pattern someone noticed in noise.

What the indicators measure:

  • Mayer Multiple: current price divided by the 200-day moving average. Historically, readings above 2.4 have coincided with cycle tops; readings below 1.0 with accumulation zones.
  • MVRV Z-Score: compares market cap to realized cap (the aggregate cost basis of all coins). High MVRV means coins are, on average, held at large unrealized gains — historically a signal of excess.
  • Pi Cycle Top: a cross between the 111-day and 350-day×2 moving averages. Has called the last three cycle tops within days. No one has a satisfying explanation for why those specific parameters work, which is either a signal or a coincidence depending on your priors.
  • Realized price deviation: how far current price sits above or below the network's aggregate cost basis.

The honest limitation:

Each of these indicators has called previous cycles with striking accuracy on 3–4 data points. Three or four cycles is not a large sample. Each cycle has been larger and longer than the one before; the patterns may be regularizing or they may be artifacts of a maturing asset that's running out of the easy doubling room. The composite gauge here gives you a blended read across all four — more robust than any single indicator, still not a timer.

Methodology

Combines four independent indicators, normalizes each to a 0–100 heat reading, and averages them into a composite cycle temperature.

Mayer Multiple
M = P_spot ÷ MA₂₀₀ (hot > 2.4, cold < 0.8)
Realized Cap
RC = Σ UTXO_value · P_at_last_move
MVRV Z-Score
Z = (MarketCap − RealizedCap) ÷ σ(MarketCap)
Pi Cycle Top Signal
MA₁₁₁ ≥ 2 × MA₃₅₀
Realized Price
RP = RC ÷ Supply
Composite Cycle Temperature
T = (¼) · Σ H_i

No single indicator is authoritative, but agreement across all four is meaningful. Spot below realized price has historically been a deep-bear regime.

Data source: CoinGecko spot APILast updated:

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