Will Bitcoin Break The Cycle Or Repeat It?
A broadly shared seasonality snapshot is making the rounds forward of month-end: a Coinglass warmth map of Bitcoin’s month-to-month returns, reposted by dealer Daan Crypto Trades. The desk spans 2013–2025 and reveals November because the statistical outlier in Bitcoin’s calendar—each for eye-popping good points and for sharp drawdowns in sure years.
Bitcoin November Preview
“November is Bitcoin’s finest month based mostly on historic efficiency. By far,” Daan wrote on X, pointing to a mean November change of +46.02% throughout the dataset. That determine is visibly distorted by November 2013’s +449.35% surge, the only largest month-to-month transfer on the board. He added: “The typical acquire over all these months is +46.02%. However that is closely skewed by a single month-to-month acquire in November 2013. Bitcoin went up +449.35%!! that month.”
The uncooked counts again up the status with out the hyperbole. Out of the 12 Novembers listed (2013–2024), 8 completed inexperienced—2013 (+449.35%), 2014 (+12.82%), 2015 (+19.27%), 2016 (+5.42%), 2017 (+53.48%), 2020 (+42.95%), 2023 (+8.81%), and 2024 (+37.29%)—whereas 4 had been unfavourable—2018 (-36.57%), 2019 (-17.27%), 2021 (-7.11%), and 2022 (-16.23%).
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The median November change sits at +10.82%, a extra conservative central tendency that dampens the 2013 impact. Excluding 2013 completely, the easy common for November drops to roughly +9.35% throughout the remaining 11 years, underscoring how one month can skew mean-based seasonality.
Context from the broader desk issues. November’s common is the best of any month on Coinglass’s grid, forward of October’s +20.30% common, whereas December reveals a much more blended profile with a +4.75% common however a -3.22% median—an imbalance in line with outlier-driven months.
September, lengthy maligned by merchants, retains a unfavourable common (-3.08%) over the total interval. The 2024 row itself captures the push-and-pull of this cycle’s narrative: double-digit good points in February, March, Could, October, and November, offset by significant drawdowns in April, June, and August, and a unfavourable December print to shut the 12 months (-2.85%).
Classes From Prior Cycles
Daan’s framing extends past easy seasonality. “November & December is when the 2013, 2017 & 2021 cycles topped out. It’s additionally the place the 2018 & 2022 cycles bottomed out,” he famous. That remark strains up with the historic inflection factors most market contributors bear in mind: the late-2013 mania and subsequent crash, the December 2017 peak, the November 2021 all-time excessive, and the December 2018 and November 2022 washouts.
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The Coinglass grid can’t timestamp intramonth highs or lows, however the clustering of main pivots into the ultimate two months of the 12 months is in line with the market’s folklore and with the returns sample that reveals each exceptionally robust up months and a few of the cycle’s most punishing down months on this window.
The sensible takeaway—once more in Daan’s phrases—shouldn’t be categorical bullishness, however regime danger: “All in all, an eventful final 2 months of the 12 months usually talking. Whether or not it’s on the bullish or bearish aspect, volatility and massive market pivots have been the theme into the top of the 12 months.” The warmth map helps that characterization.
November’s distribution spans the widest extremes on file—from +449.35% on the prime to -36.57% on the draw back—with a two-thirds hit fee for inexperienced months and a median acquire within the low double digits. December, against this, has produced each cycle tops and cycle bottoms regardless of a modest common, a reminder that common and median statistics can obscure the trail danger that defines Bitcoin’s fourth quarter.
Seasonality shouldn’t be future, and the pattern is proscribed. Nonetheless, the data-backed message is obvious: as November approaches, Bitcoin’s historic sample has been much less about quiet development continuation and extra about variance—the sort that has marked each euphoric blow-offs and capitulation lows.
At press time, BTC traded at $114,487.
Featured picture created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
