Bitcoin Market Cycle Methodology

Each indicator is reduced to one daily series and graded into three tiers by where its recent extreme sits against its low-risk and high-risk targets: 0 at or below the low-risk target, 50 between the two, 100 at or above the high-risk target. In a bull market the extreme is the indicator's high over the trailing 30 days; in a bear market it is the 30-day low. Risk is the plain average of the grades.

extreme_i = bull ? high_i : low_i        # over the trailing 30 days
grade_i   = 0 | 50 | 100                  # low-risk • between • high-risk
Risk      = average(grade_i)              # over the indicators counted that day

Reading the high in a bull asks how hot each indicator got; reading the low in a bear asks how cheap each got, so Risk rises toward cycle tops and falls toward bottoms. Pi Cycle Top only marks tops and has no low-risk target, so it is counted in a bull market and left out in a bear: ten indicators in a bull, nine in a bear.

Most targets are structural: they sit on a line the indicator is defined against, such as the model line or a moving average, and never move. The other four (MVRV Z-Score, Puell Multiple, RHODL Ratio, Net Unrealized Profit/Loss (NUPL)) have seen their cycle peaks compress, so a level fixed on the early cycles would stop being reachable. Their targets are fitted to where each indicator sat at past cycle extremes, recalculated each time a cycle turn is confirmed, and then held fixed until the next one. Each refit uses only the history known on the day it happens. The values shown are the ones in force as of Oct 9, 2026.

Indicators rarely peak or bottom on the same day, so Risk grades a rolling 30-day window rather than a single day: once an indicator reaches a target, that reading counts for 30 days. The window never reaches back past the last confirmed cycle turn, so a new leg starts clean. 30 days rather than the whole cycle keeps Risk a reading of what is happening now, not a record of a signal from months ago. The orange range on every indicator gauge shows its full-cycle low and high for context; Risk always grades the 30-day window.

Three cycle clocks, each built from Bitcoin's own price history:

• Peak-to-Bottom: days from a cycle top to the following bottom.
• Bottom-to-Peak: days from a cycle bottom to the following top.
• Halving-to-Peak: days from a halving to the following top.

bull:  Time = 100 * average( clamp(days_since_bottom  / avg_bottom_to_peak,  0, 1),
                            clamp(days_since_halving / avg_halving_to_peak, 0, 1) )
bear:  Time = 100 * ( 1 - clamp(days_since_top / avg_peak_to_bottom, 0, 1) )

Time climbs from 0 at a bottom to 100 at the projected top, then falls back to 0 at the projected bottom. Each clock's average is the plain mean of every completed leg from the 2013 top onward, currently three per clock; the Halving-to-Peak clock starts at the 2016 halving and reads 0 until a halving inside that cycle arrives. On any day, only legs already confirmed by that day are averaged, so the score can fall short of 100 or overshoot a real turn rather than being fitted to it after the fact.

The projected top blends the Bottom-to-Peak and Halving-to-Peak clocks; the projected bottom uses the Peak-to-Bottom clock. Projected prices lean on the most recent cycles, since returns have diminished with each one, while the full historical spread is shown as the range.

Cycle Altitude = bull ? max(Risk, Time) : min(Risk, Time)   # 0 to 100

In a bull the more stretched of the two lenses leads, so Altitude reaches the top of its range as soon as either valuation or the clock does. In a bear the more washed-out lens leads, so it reaches the bottom as soon as either does. The labels read by leg: the same reading describes a different stage on the way up than on the way down.

Whether the market is in a bull or a bear is set by the last confirmed cycle turn. After a bottom the market is a bull until a top is confirmed, and the reverse. A turn is confirmed in two steps:

• Arming: the watch opens once Cycle Altitude reaches an extreme reading, high in a bull and low in a bear.
• Holding: once armed, the running extreme (the highest close in a bull, the lowest in a bear) has to stand unbeaten through a confirmation period. A new extreme restarts the count.

A confirmed turn is dated to the extreme itself and marked on the day the count completes, and both dates are published. If price later exceeds a confirmed extreme before the opposite turn is confirmed, the leg extends and the turn moves to the new extreme. The earliest top in the history, which nothing came before to arm against, is set from price alone. Every confirmed turn is listed on Confirmed Cycle Pivots.