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Our AI-driven analysis of Bitcoin’s cycles: the correlations between today’s market and every earlier year, cycle and bear market, with the measures and the macro data behind them.

Updated 7m ago

Cycle Windrose Correlation Valuation Floors Dollar Halving overlay Bear markets 12-year outlook

$73,664 price now -40.9% from the cycle's closing high 46% through cycle 4 517 days to the halving 402 days since the top Details

The dollar and Bitcoin

Bitcoin is priced in dollars, so the dollar’s own strength matters. Of every measure from outside Bitcoin that we tested, this is the one that held up: after the dollar has fallen for three months, Bitcoin’s next three months have been strong; after it has risen, weak.

dollar to 6 Nov

The dollar over the last 90 days: +2.4% rising: the side that has gone with a weaker Bitcoin
After readings like this, Bitcoin’s next 90 days: +0.5% the middle result since 2012
Ended higher51% of the time
Periods21
After the dollar had fallen 2% or more: +40% the middle result since 2012
Ended higher87% of the time
Periods17
After it had risen 2% or more: +0.5% the middle result since 2012
Ended higher51% of the time
Periods21

How to read this

The dollar here is the Federal Reserve’s broad dollar index: the dollar against the currencies of the United States’ trading partners. Up means the dollar bought more of them than 90 days before.
"The middle result" is the middle of every case: half did better, half worse. "Separate periods" counts spells at least two months apart, because days in one spell are not independent examples.
What it is for: a sense of whether the wind is behind Bitcoin or against it over the coming months. It is a tendency, not a rule: Bitcoin has risen with a strong dollar and fallen with a weak one many times.
What it is not: a trading signal for our strategy. Our two largest gains since 2018 began while the dollar was rising (see the last card).

Bitcoin’s price, marked by what the dollar had done

The price is drawn bold in cyan where the dollar had fallen 2% or more over the 90 days before, and in lilac where it had risen 2% or more.

Bitcoin price the dollar had fallen 2% or more the dollar had risen 2% or more the dollar’s change over 90 days (lower panel)

Top: Bitcoin’s price on a log scale, so a doubling is the same height anywhere. Bottom: how much the dollar had moved over the 90 days before each day, with the lines at 2% up and 2% down. The Federal Reserve publishes its figures a week late, and every reading here allows for that.

What Bitcoin did next, in three stretches of its history

Bitcoin’s following 90 days, sorted by what the dollar had done over the 90 days before. A pattern that shows in only one stretch is luck; this one shows in all three.

The dollar over the 90 days before	Since 2012	2012 to 2017	2018 to 2021	2022 on
Down 2% or more	+40%up 87%, 17 periods	+62%up 98%, 6 periods	+47%up 76%, 5 periods	+18%up 87%, 6 periods
Down 0 to 2%	+16%up 62%, 25 periods	+30%up 71%, 9 periods	+17%up 60%, 8 periods	+1.2%up 52%, 8 periods
Up 0 to 2%	+0.6%up 51%, 20 periods	+11%up 60%, 8 periods	−14%up 39%, 7 periods	−0.6%up 49%, 7 periods
Up 2% or morewhere it is now	+0.5%up 51%, 21 periods	+14%up 63%, 9 periods	−3%up 44%, 7 periods	−8%up 38%, 5 periods

Each cell: the middle result of Bitcoin’s next 90 days; under it, how often it ended higher and how many separate periods are behind it. The results run in order from the top row to the bottom in every stretch, which is what makes this more than a coincidence. It is still a handful of periods in each cell.

Since February 2018, day by day

Every day sorted by what the dollar had done over the 90 days before, and what Bitcoin made on those days added together.

The dollar over the 90 days before	Days	Share of the time	Bitcoin on those days, in all	As a yearly rate
Down 2% or more	600	19%	10.11×	+308%
Down 0 to 2%	800	25%	1.73×	+28%
Up 0 to 2%	1,094	34%	0.39×	−27%
Up 2% or more	713	22%	1.08×	+4%

What this shows

All of Bitcoin’s rise since 2018 came on days when the dollar had been falling. On the days when it had been rising, Bitcoin went nowhere or down.
As a test: $1,000 held in Bitcoin only while the dollar was down over 90 days, and in cash otherwise, against the same $1,000 held throughout.

Held $1,000 became Worst fall

Only while the dollar fell $15,961 −50%

Held throughout $7,385 −76%

That took 118 switches in and out.
It does not make a better strategy than ours on its own. We tested the dollar as a rule for our own entries and exits. Keeping out while the dollar rises loses, because our two largest gains since 2018 (from April 2020 and from October 2023) both began with the dollar up more than 5%. A quicker entry while the dollar is falling added to the result since 2018 and took from it in the years before. Our rules are unchanged.

Held	$1,000 became	Worst fall
Only while the dollar fell	$15,961	−50%
Held throughout	$7,385	−76%

Beside it: the Federal Reserve’s net liquidity

The Federal Reserve’s total assets, less the Treasury’s account and less reverse repos: a rough measure of the money it leaves in the banking system.

4 Nov 2026$5.48 trillion

Against 13 weeks before−0.4%, falling

Its link with Bitcoin’s next 90 days has had the same sign in every stretch, and is weaker than the dollar’s. The popular claim that Bitcoin follows the money supply with a 10 to 12 week delay did not hold up when we tested it on changes instead of levels.

Dollar index and balance sheet: source the Federal Reserve (releases H.10 and H.4.1), stored by our engine and read from there. The trading costs in the test are 0.075% a switch. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results. Not advice and not a forecast.