Bitcoin Cycle Pivot Detector

A cycle top or bottom is never obvious on the day it happens. This chart puts the day the high or low actually printed beside the day the detector could confirm it, for every pivot in Bitcoin's history since 2015 plus the one still pending.

PivotDatePriceDetectedPerfect Timing vs Detector TimingDays After Extreme
BottompendingJun 30, 2026$58,525Not yet56 days
TopOct 6, 2025$124,824Oct 21, 2025 at $108,70053.1% vs 27.7% decline15 days
BottomNov 9, 2022$15,758Nov 23, 2022 at $16,574692.1% vs 555.8% advance14 days
TopNov 8, 2021$67,542Nov 30, 2021 at $57,09776.7% vs 71.0% decline22 days
BottomDec 15, 2018$3,185Jan 9, 2019 at $4,0042,020.6% vs 1,325.9% advance25 days
TopDec 16, 2017$19,641Dec 30, 2017 at $12,94983.8% vs 69.1% decline14 days
BottomJan 14, 2015$176Jan 28, 2015 at $23611,082.4% vs 5,392.9% advance14 days
About This Chart

In one sentence

Nobody can see a cycle top or bottom on the day it happens, so this chart shows how long after the fact each one could actually be confirmed.

What it measures

Two dates for every cycle pivot, and the distance between them. The first is the day price actually set its high or low. The second is the day the pivot was detected, once that extreme had been watched for two weeks without being beaten.

The two are never the same day, and the gap between them is not fixed. The count only runs while a confirmation watch is open, and that watch sometimes opens before the high or low prints and sometimes long after it. So some pivots are detected exactly fourteen days after the extreme, and others take far longer.

Why detect instead of predict

A cycle top or bottom is only obvious in hindsight. On the day it happens it looks like any other day, and it is usually weeks or months before the turn can be said to have held. Reading it live is something people are simply bad at, and picking the date in advance is the natural instinct and a good way to be wrong.

So this does not try to predict the turn. It waits for a high or low to print, keeps watching it, and only names it a pivot once enough time has passed for the extra data to make the answer clearer. Every pivot here is therefore named late, on purpose. The lateness is what buys the accuracy.

How to read it

The shaded band on each pivot is the wait: the stretch between the day the extreme printed and the day the pivot was detected. Nothing is claimed inside it. The arrow on the price line is where the high or low actually landed, though nobody could know it was the high or low until the wait was over. The solid guide is the day the detector confirmed it.

The table's last pair of figures prices the same round trip twice. Perfect timing runs from one extreme to the next, the move only hindsight could have caught. Detector timing runs from one detection to the next, which is what the rule committed to at both ends. On every pivot recorded so far the second is the smaller of the two, and the difference between them is the waiting cost.

Most dates here come from replaying the rule over the price record, using only what was knowable on each day. It is what the rule would have said at the time, not a claim about what was published then.

Limitations

The waiting period is fixed at fourteen days regardless of how violent the move was, so a sharp reversal and a slow rounding turn are detected on the same schedule.

A detected pivot is not permanent. If price later exceeds a confirmed extreme before the opposite pivot is detected, the leg extends and the pivot moves, taking both of its dates with it.

On a rising leg the watch usually opens because the timing models say the cycle is past due rather than because valuation is extreme, since Cycle Altitude reaching 100 on Risk alone requires every indicator past its sell edge at once.

The rule is calibrated on a short history of completed cycles, so the thresholds behind it rest on a small sample.

Fact Sheet

How it is calculated

A confirmation watch opens when Cycle Altitude reaches 100 on a rising leg or 6 on a falling one. Once open, the running price extreme is tracked, and every new extreme restarts a 14-day count. The count measures days the extreme has been watched, starting from the later of the extreme and the watch opening, so a watch that opens late still has to wait the full fourteen days. When it elapses, the detector commits to that price and date as the cycle pivot.

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