Is Bitcoin in a Bull Market?

A label like “bull market” compresses three separate measurements into one word, and loses information doing it. The framework keeps them separate: each reference price is a different lens — trend followers' (the 200-day average), holders' (the realised price), and producers' (the mining-cost estimate). The framework therefore reports the configuration and its duration directly, rather than compressing them into a single bull-or-bear label. Each reference is only ever compared over its honestly observed window — none of the three series is extended backwards beyond what was actually measured.

The advances were large and the timing loose: cycle advances from halving-day to cycle peak measured +9,103% (2012 cycle), +2,913% (2016 cycle) and +686% to the November 2021 high (2020 cycle). In the 2012 cycle the highest close came 371 days after the halving; in 2016, 525 days. In the 2020 cycle the November 2021 high came about 18 months after the halving — though that cycle's single highest close actually came later, in March 2024, weeks before the next halving.

And the reversals were severe: Each completed bull-market peak was followed by a decline of 85% (from December 2013, over 406 days), 84% (from December 2017, over 364 days) and 77% (from November 2021, over 366 days) to the following low. Three completed cycles is a very small sample — far too small to treat any of these patterns as a law.