The short version
Bitcoin runs on a four year halving clock. Every cycle low so far has landed about 30 months after a halving, and the last two landed at almost exactly the same point. This cycle hits 30 months on 3 November.
Three lows is a pattern, not a law.
There is a bitcoin chart that gets reposted more than any other, and it is a spiral. Root, who writes as The Rational Root, drew it.
His claim is simple: the big moments keep landing at the same place on the dial. We rebuilt it from our own copy of the bitcoin ledger to check. It holds.
How to read it
It is a clock face with one hand, and the hand takes four years to go round.
Twelve o'clock is a halving, the moment when new bitcoin starts arriving at half the rate it did before. Quarter past is a year later. Half past is two years. Back at twelve, the next halving.
The further a point sits from the middle, the higher the price. Each ring out is ten times the ring inside it.
Sixteen years of price, wound into four and a bit laps.
This chart needs JavaScript. The picture at the top of the page is the same data, and every number it shows is in the tables below.
Red wedge: where every cycle high has landed. Teal wedge: where every cycle low has landed. Tap any point to read it, and try the full screen button.
Every low lands about 30 months in
Take the cheapest bitcoin got between one record price and the next. Then ask how long after the halving that was.
| Cycle | Its low | Months after the halving |
|---|---|---|
| 2012 to 2016 | 13 January 2015 | 29.4 |
| 2016 to 2020 | 15 December 2018 | 30.6 |
| 2020 to 2024 | 22 November 2022 | 30.6 |
The last two are the part we did not believe. The 2018 low came 930 days after its halving. Four years later, the 2022 low came 932 days after its own.
So on the day the 2018 low happened, you could have counted forward to the same point in the next cycle and written a date in the calendar. That date would have been two days early.
And there is a gap right after it. In sixteen years, bitcoin has never set a record price between 30 and 42 months after a halving. That is a quarter of the clock face, and it is empty.
Every high lands about 18 months in
Same story at the other end. The 2016 cycle set its record 18.2 months after its halving. The 2020 cycle at 18.0 months. This one at 17.8.
Nothing forces this. The halving is arithmetic. The price is people.
Which points at 3 November
We are 28 months past the halving. This cycle's record came in on time, and the price is 40 percent below it now.
The three past lows landed between 29.4 and 30.6 months. This cycle reaches 29.4 months on 27 September, and 30.6 months on 3 November, which is where the last two landed.
The cheapest so far was 58,860 dollars on 30 June, at 26.5 months. That is early. So either June was the bottom, or the one the clock points at has not happened yet.
We do not know which. Neither does the chart.
But every swing is smaller
The spiral's other claim is that its rings never touch, because each cycle has been worth about ten times the last. That is true. It is also just a description of what happened, not a reason for it to happen again.
Heat is one number: today's price divided by what people who bought in the last five months paid. Every bitcoin that moves leaves a public record of the price it moved at, so that figure is knowable. Above 1.20 and the market is running hot. Below 1.00 and recent buyers are losing money.
| Cycle | How much the price grew | Days it ran hot |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 to 2012 | 538 times | 57% |
| 2012 to 2016 | 91 times | 24% |
| 2016 to 2020 | 30 times | 29% |
| 2020 to 2024 | 8.4 times | 28% |
| 2024 to now | 1.9 times | 4% |
The hottest each cycle got has fallen every time: 2.79, then 2.22, then 1.76, then 1.34. Bitcoin ran hot for about a quarter of each of the last three cycles. This one has managed 4 percent of its days.
And the three cycles after that
The halvings are already scheduled, because they are arithmetic rather than opinion. Block 1,050,000 in 2028, block 1,260,000 in 2032, block 1,470,000 in 2036.
Add 18 months for a high and 31 months for a low, and the chart names dates a decade out.
| What | If the pattern holds |
|---|---|
| This cycle's low | 3 November 2026 |
| Next high | around October 2029 |
| Next low | around October 2030 |
| The high after that | around October 2033 |
| The low after that | around October 2034 |
Notice they are all in autumn. So is every date in the record. Bitcoin has set its cycle high in October, November or December every single time, and its low in November, December or January every single time.
The further out you read that table, the less it is worth. Blocks have been arriving slightly faster than ten minutes for years, which pulls every date earlier, by about three weeks per cycle. The 2034 row could be a month out on that alone.
Why this might be wrong
We just named dates a decade out from three lows. Everything above rests on two turning points landing in the same place and a third landing near them. That is the entire evidence base for a table that runs to 2034.
Three lows is three lows. The cycle before them had no halving in front of it, and it broke the pattern: its low came at 35.1 months. The 2013 record came at 14.2 months, four months earlier than the three that followed. A cluster this tight is not hard to get from three numbers, and we would not bet money on it.
We chose the definition. A low here is the cheapest price between records, after a fall of more than half that lasted more than twenty weeks. Loosen that and the covid crash of March 2020 counts as a low, at 46.8 months, and the pattern falls apart.
The heat number runs high, and that is ours to declare. 1.46 million bitcoin were made before anyone could buy one, and they count as bought for nothing. That drags the long-held average down, which pushes our recent-buyer figure up.
This cycle is not over. Its 1.9 times is the least it can end at, not the final answer.
What we think
Root is right about the thing he is known for, and more exactly than his picture alone lets you see.
So: the timing has held for eleven years, the size has shrunk for four cycles running, and we are 28 months past a halving with a record that came in on time and a low that may or may not have happened. That is a pattern worth watching, not a forecast. The date to watch is 3 November. We will publish this chart again after it, whether it lands or not.
A chart that only gets reposted when it agrees with you is not a measurement. It is an advertisement.
Everything here comes from our own complete copy of the bitcoin ledger, replayed from its first block, at block 963,401 on 21 August 2026, one reading per day. Months after a halving are counted at ten minutes a block, which is what bitcoin aims for. What recent buyers paid is worked out, not read off: the total every bitcoin last changed hands for, minus the total for coins untouched in 155 days, divided by the coins left. The original spiral is Root's. If you find an error, tell me and I will fix it and say so.