Worst planned case: about -27%. Best of these scenarios: about +92% after tax.
That's a long way from the 10x and 100x cycles of the past. There may be one more worthwhile cycle. Worth a small bet, not a big one.
What am I doing? Still playing, but smaller, with rules set in advance:
• 25% in Nov, 25% in Dec, the rest spread over Jan–Jun 2027
• Each buy sold 30 months later, or 35 months after the low if sooner
• A daily close below the cycle low sells everything
Not financial advice.
And altcoin season didn't show up.
Buy the 100 largest coins in Nov 2018, hold 30 months: 10 of 46 beat Bitcoin. Same test from Nov 2022: 1 of 100.
The median altcoin lost money.
Meanwhile, fewer people use it.
Bitcoin addresses active each day (yearly average) peaked around 1.04 million in 2021. Today: 643,000. That's 38% lower, and below the end-2017 level at a price about 6 times higher.
Like gold, it's becoming something held in storage, not spent.
And Bitcoin now falls when stocks fall.
Correlation of weekly moves with the S&P 500: 0.05 from 2014 to 2019. 0.26 since 2020, peaking above 0.5 in 2022 and again in 2026.
The four-year cycle has never been tested by a long recession. That's my biggest worry.
Bitcoin has only ever known a rising stock market.
1950 to 2009: 9 stock market falls of 20% or more, typically 17 months from high to low. Since March 2009: 2, both short.
A long, grinding stock bear market hasn't happened in 17 years.
If June's $58,525 was the low and the next run shrinks the way past runs did, the next top lands around 88k, 109k or 173k.
Two of those are below the last top ($124,824). That has never happened in Bitcoin's history.
A rough illustration, not a forecast.
The calendar says it's too early.
Real breakouts came 14 to 18 months after the top. Before the 10-month mark, every breakout was a trap: Bitcoin fell another 73% after 2014's and 59% after 2018's.
This one came at 10 months, the earliest that has ever counted.
Is the bottom already in? My price signal says yes.
The breakout bar: wait 10 months after the all-time high, then look for the first green month that closes above the high of the last red month.
It fired in August at $78,549, exactly 10 months after the Oct 2025 top.
