Where are we in the cycle?

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.

Open question, and a serious one. The 2024–2025 cycle is the first to run with US spot ETFs as a structural buyer and with corporate treasuries adding at scale. Both flows are largely insensitive to short-term price, which changes the demand side that previously drove cyclical excess.

Arguments the cycle is intact:

• Supply schedule is mechanical and unchanged
• Leverage in the system still flushes during drawdowns
• Retail psychology and reflexivity haven't gone away

Arguments it's elongating or flattening:

• ETF and treasury buyers absorb supply that previously had to find a marginal retail buyer at any price
• Each cycle's max drawdown has shrunk: −94, −86, −84, −77
• Each cycle's peak multiple over the prior peak has also shrunk

The composite gauge will keep working as a relative read — overheated vs accumulation — even if the absolute amplitudes compress.

As one input, not a trigger. The indicators are good at flagging extremes — clear accumulation, clear euphoria — and poor at the in-between.

Reasonable uses:

• Accelerate DCA buys when the composite sits in deep accumulation
• Pause new buys or trim a sliver from a corporate treasury when it sits in the euphoria band
• Avoid using a single indicator's flip as a market-timing trigger

Unreasonable uses:

• Selling a long-term position because Mayer crossed 2.4 last week
• Levering into Bitcoin because MVRV says undervalued

These four were selected because each measures a different underlying dimension and the four together cover most of what's knowable from on-chain and price data:

• Mayer Multiple — short-term price stretch vs trend
• MVRV Z-Score — aggregate holder profit/loss psychology
• Pi Cycle — momentum exhaustion at major tops
• Realized price deviation — distance from network cost basis

Adding more indicators creates the illusion of robustness but introduces correlated signals. The composite intentionally stops at four.