Bottom-to-Peak

It treats a cycle as a shape rather than just a duration. For every completed cycle it records the whole path of gains from the bottom, day by day, not just the start and end points. Laying those paths over each other from a common starting point shows how consistently past rallies have unfolded.

The current cycle is then plotted against that group. Where it sits is what the Time score reads: not whether the price is high, but how far through a typical rally the calendar says we are.

The output is a position on a cycle clock, not a price target. A high reading means the calendar is late in a typical rally. It does not mean price has to fall.

This is why Time is kept separate from Risk. The two can disagree, and the headline Cycle Altitude is built from that disagreement rather than hiding it.

Each rally so far has produced a smaller total gain than the one before it, the pattern usually called diminishing returns. Cycles also used to lengthen each time, though that pattern has since broken.

Sample size is the real constraint. Bitcoin has completed only a handful of cycles, so this is a shape fitted to very little data, and any range it produces is narrower than the true uncertainty.

It assumes future cycles resemble past ones. Spot ETFs, institutional allocation, and a far larger market are all reasons the next rally might not, and the indicator has no way to represent a structural change like that.

It depends on correctly identifying where the cycle bottomed, which is only ever certain in hindsight. If that bottom is later revised, the whole projection moves with it.