Bitcoin Rainbow Chart & 4-year cycles
Long-term price history, halvings and how past cycles compare with today. Educational, not a forecast.
Watch: the short video
English · 1 minThe Bitcoin Halving Explained: 50 → 3.125 BTC
Every 210,000 blocks the reward halves: 50 → 25 → 12.5 → 6.25 → 3.125 BTC, toward 21M around 2140.
Transcript, takeaways & FAQ →Watch: the short video
English · 1 minWhy Are There Only 21 Million Bitcoin?
The supply cap in the code, block rewards and halvings, the last fraction around 2140 and 100 million sats per coin. A fixed supply does not guarantee any price.
Transcript, takeaways & FAQ →Watch: the short video
English · 1 minBitcoin Rainbow Chart Explained: A Meme Model, Not a Forecast
A long-term price chart on a log scale with a logarithmic regression curve and colored bands. A meme that only describes the past, not a forecast. Not investment advice.
Transcript, takeaways & FAQ →Bitcoin Rainbow Chart
Price on a log scale with colour bands around a long-term trend line fitted to the whole price history.
The rainbow is an internet meme, not a model. The bands are drawn to fit past prices, so they will look right in hindsight and can stop working at any time. Band names are the original joke labels, not signals.
Method: least-squares fit of log10(price) on log10(days since 3 Jan 2009); 9 equal-width bands span the lowest to highest deviation since 2011.
Source: blockchain.info charts/market-price (daily USD, sampled=false) · current price: Coinbase spot · as of 2026-10-22 · trend line and bands computed by 21btc
4-year cycles and halvings
About every four years (every 210,000 blocks) the reward miners get for a block is cut in half. So far, each halving has been followed by a big rise, a peak and then a deep fall.
- 2012: 18.27× ($228)
- 2016: 6.06× ($4,017)
- 2020: 1.94× ($16,990)
- 2024: 1.32×
| Cycle | Price at halving | Peak (daily) | Peak × halving price | Days halving→peak | Low after peak | Drop peak→low |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Before 1st halving | — | $33.8 · 11 Jun 2011 | — | — | $2.3 · 22 Nov 2011 | -93% |
| Halving 28 Nov 2012 | $12.5 | $1,137 · 5 Dec 2013 | 91.0× | 372 | $172 · 15 Jan 2015 | -85% |
| Halving 9 Jul 2016 | $663 | $19,280 · 17 Dec 2017 | 29.1× | 526 | $3,232 · 16 Dec 2018 | -83% |
| Halving 11 May 2020 | $8,754 | $67,562 · 9 Nov 2021 | 7.7× | 547 | $15,760 · 22 Nov 2022 | -77% |
| Halving 20 Apr 2024(current, so far) | $63,824 | $124,777 · 7 Oct 2025 | 2.0× | 535 | — | -33% (now vs peak) |
Cycles side by side: price as a multiple of the halving-day price
Peaks and lows use daily closing prices (blockchain.info), so intraday highs were a bit higher. Halving dates are protocol events; the next date is an estimate at 10 minutes per block. Four cycles are very little history: the past is not a forecast.
Educational, not investment advice.
Bitcoin monthly & quarterly returns
Heatmap of the BTC/USD price change for every month and quarter since 2013. We compute it from daily closes; the current period updates live.
What this means in plain words
Each cell shows how much the bitcoin price rose (green) or fell (red) during that month: from last month's close to this month's close. Average and Median at the bottom summarise every year for one month. The median is less skewed by one wild year such as 2013.
History does not guarantee the future. A month that is “good on average” has ended in a loss many times, and the sample is only about 13 years. This is a record of the past, not advice to buy or sell.
If you'd rather accumulate without timing months, see the DCA calculator.
← swipe the table sideways →
| Year | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | -10.13% | -14.82% | +1.84% | +11.87% | -3.59% | -20.45% | +7.33% | +25.08% | +6.35% | -2.74%* | ||
| 2025 | +9.67% | -17.66% | -2.11% | +14.11% | +11.11% | +2.42% | +8.00% | -6.46% | +5.35% | -3.95% | -17.50% | -3.19% |
| 2024 | +0.71% | +43.71% | +16.55% | -14.94% | +11.29% | -7.12% | +3.09% | -8.74% | +7.35% | +10.95% | +37.32% | -3.17% |
| 2023 | +39.93% | +0.04% | +23.08% | +2.67% | -6.90% | +11.94% | -4.06% | -11.29% | +3.99% | +28.54% | +8.82% | +12.03% |
| 2022 | -16.71% | +12.18% | +5.42% | -17.31% | -15.61% | -37.27% | +17.05% | -13.99% | -3.16% | +5.52% | -16.24% | -3.74% |
| 2021 | +14.31% | +36.51% | +29.93% | -1.71% | -35.37% | -6.17% | +18.42% | +13.66% | -7.04% | +39.98% | -7.15% | -18.89% |
| 2020 | +30.13% | -8.58% | -24.70% | +34.36% | +9.49% | -3.32% | +24.35% | +2.63% | -7.52% | +28.19% | +42.59% | +47.17% |
| 2019 | -7.59% | +11.08% | +8.04% | +28.64% | +62.22% | +25.89% | -6.27% | -4.87% | -13.51% | +10.26% | -17.48% | -5.06% |
| 2018 | -26.88% | +1.63% | -32.83% | +33.39% | -18.93% | -14.77% | +20.98% | -9.17% | -5.98% | -4.46% | -37.00% | -6.99% |
| 2017 | -0.24% | +23.57% | -10.15% | +26.15% | +70.20% | +7.29% | +15.83% | +65.78% | -8.62% | +48.73% | +54.61% | +39.53% |
| 2016 | -14.48% | +18.11% | -4.73% | +8.13% | +18.62% | +25.59% | -6.61% | -8.51% | +6.57% | +14.60% | +6.46% | +30.22% |
| 2015 | -32.43% | +16.86% | -3.64% | -3.29% | -3.09% | +14.67% | +8.32% | -19.16% | +2.76% | +31.32% | +21.45% | +14.38% |
| 2014 | +9.70% | -31.27% | -17.59% | -1.31% | +39.87% | +2.12% | -9.21% | -17.70% | -18.36% | -13.58% | +11.54% | -14.86% |
| 2013 | +54.53% | +63.88% | +186.76% | +45.48% | -8.56% | -30.01% | +9.77% | +30.24% | -1.37% | +61.22% | +450.02% | -34.61% |
| Average | +3.61% | +11.09% | +12.56% | +11.87% | +9.34% | -2.09% | +7.64% | +2.68% | -2.37% | +18.18% | +41.34% | +4.06% |
| Median | +0.23% | +11.63% | -0.13% | +10.00% | +3.20% | -0.60% | +8.16% | -7.48% | -2.27% | +12.77% | +8.82% | -3.19% |
* current period is not closed yet (“in progress”) and is included in the average and median. Source: Bitstamp BTC/USD daily OHLC (UTC days); cross-checked against Coinbase Exchange BTC-USD daily candles over 59 days, max diff 0.047%. Method: return = last daily close of the period / previous period's last close − 1 (UTC days). Aggregators such as Coinglass use other exchanges and close times, so figures can differ by fractions of a percent, more in 2013–2014. Updated 2026-10-22 18:31:20 UTC.