Bitcoin is 37% below its peak. The last three cycles were down 62% to 78% by now
Sixteen months after its highest month-end close, bitcoin's drop is the smallest of the last three cycles. Here is what our price history shows, and what it can't tell you.
Sixteen months after its highest month-end close, bitcoin trades about 37% below it. At the same point in each of the last three cycles, it was down between 62% and 78%. That is the main finding from Orange Wire's own price history, which holds every month-end close since 2010.
Bitcoin closed July 2025 at $115,750, its highest month-end close to date. On the morning of November 12, 2026 (UTC), it traded near $72,946 on Bitstamp. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index read 28 that day, Coinspeaker reported.
How we measured it
We use month-end closes, mainly from Bitstamp, the same data behind our Charts tab. Monthly closes smooth out the wildest days, so they show smaller drops than intraday prices. Bitcoin's intraday record on Bitstamp was $126,272 on October 6, 2025. Today's price is about 42% below that.
Each cycle's peak is its highest month-end close. Prices went higher during October 2025, but no month closed above July's level. We compare all four cycles at 16 months because that is where the current one stands today.
The current figure uses the November 12 price, because November has not closed yet. We will update it after the month ends.
The four cycles side by side
- 2013 cycle: peak close $1,119.52 in November 2013. The deepest close was $216.90 in January 2015, down 81%. After 16 months it was down 78%. It first closed above the old peak in February 2017, 39 months after the peak.
- 2017 cycle: peak close $13,880 in December 2017. The deepest close was $3,413 in January 2019, down 75%. After 16 months it was down 62%. It first closed above the old peak in November 2020, after 35 months.
- 2021 cycle: peak close $61,359 in October 2021. The deepest close was $16,528 in December 2022, down 73%. After 16 months it was down 62%. It first closed above the old peak in March 2024, after 29 months.
- Current cycle: peak close $115,750 in July 2025. The deepest close so far was $58,526 in June 2026, down 49%. After 16 months it is down about 37%, using the November 12 price rather than a month-end close.
In past cycles, the deepest close came 13 or 14 months after the peak. This cycle's deepest close so far came after 11 months. Nobody can know yet whether June was the low.
Why this drop may be smaller
Several analysts point to new buyers. US spot bitcoin ETFs and companies such as Strategy now hold large amounts of bitcoin. Pierre Rochard, CEO of The Bitcoin Bond Company, wrote on X in May, according to Decrypt: "The fourth bitcoin bear market has materially decoupled from past cycles, for now."
Cointelegraph reported his view that ETF investors and treasury companies now supply steady demand. That demand did not exist in the 2018 and 2022 bear markets, he argued.
Fidelity Digital Assets analyst Zack Wainwright said on March 31 that past drops after a record high ran about 80% to 90%, Cointelegraph reported. He said this cycle's drop was far smaller. Both views came before the June 2026 low.
Why the gap may not last
Three earlier cycles make a very small sample. The new buyers can also sell. US spot bitcoin ETFs had outflows on seven of the first eight trading days of November, about $1.88 billion in all, Coinspeaker reported. MSCI will drop Strategy from its main indexes on November 30, Orange Wire reported.
The biggest corporate buyer was sitting on a paper loss on November 12. Our Strategy tracker, built from the company's SEC filings, shows it paid an average of $75,456 for each of its 850,364 bitcoin. At the November 12 price, its holdings were worth about 3% less than Strategy paid.
Miners are selling too. MARA said in its shareholder letter that it sold about 13,597 bitcoin after its third quarter ended on September 30. It used the money partly to repay $750 million in loans.
Bitcoin also reacts to the wider economy. Hotter-than-expected October inflation data helped push it below $73,000 on November 10, Orange Wire reported. In May, Ryan Yoon of Tiger Research told Decrypt that a crash in AI stocks could send bitcoin lower again.
Illia Otychenko of CEX.IO cautioned that the bear market may not be over, Decrypt reported in May. Similar conditions came before brief recoveries in 2014, 2018 and 2022, he said. Each time, the bear market then resumed.
What history can't tell you
Today's market includes spot ETFs, public companies and index providers that played no part in 2014. Past drawdowns describe what happened then. They are no forecast for this cycle, and Orange Wire makes no price prediction.
What to watch
- November 30: MSCI's removal of Strategy from its indexes takes effect.
- The November month-end close, which will update the current-cycle figures above.
- Daily US spot ETF flows, which show whether the new buyers are adding or leaving.
Updated November 13, 2026, to add Strategy's average cost from its latest filing. The data behind this analysis now replaces the list of outside articles at the bottom. Outside sources are now named in the text.
Analysis by Orange Wire. It explains the data and is not financial advice.
Bitcoin trades well below where it was for most of the past year, and old charts show falls of 75% or more. Our data shows this cycle has so far been gentler than the last three. History is only a rough guide, though. Three past cycles cannot tell you where this one ends.
Not financial advice. How we report and check stories.
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