Bitcoin Price Models Compared: Power Law, S2F, Rainbow and More

Which bitcoin price model is any good? Most of the well-known models answer just one question: is bitcoin cheap or expensive right now compared with its own history? For that, the Power Law, the 200-week moving average, the Mayer Multiple and MVRV are useful. Models that promised a fixed price by a fixed date, stock-to-flow above all, have failed against reality.

Why there are so many bitcoin price models

Bitcoin has no earnings and pays no interest. There is no price-to-earnings ratio as there is for shares. Still, as a long-term holder you want to know whether you are buying into a frenzy or into a sell-off.

That is why analysts have been building models for years, from the price, the supply or the blockchain. One distinction matters:

• A yardstick tells you where the price stands relative to its history. That is useful and can be tested.
• A forecast promises a price on a date. That is tempting and has often gone wrong.

Every model in this article is fitted to past prices. So it always fits, one way or another, the prices it was built from. The real test only begins with the prices after it was published.

Long-term models: where is bitcoin growing?

Power Law

What it measures: the price against the time since the genesis block on January 3, 2009.

The idea in one sentence: bitcoin's price grows roughly with a fixed power of time, so it keeps rising, but by a smaller percentage each year.

Strength: the model expects growth to slow down from the outset, and that is exactly what happened. It gives not just a line but a corridor: the floor, where almost every bear market ended, the trend as fair value and the top band through the cycle highs. Giovanni Santostasi published it in 2018, and Harold Burger added the corridor in 2019.

Weakness: the formula describes but does not explain. The floor has not always held: bitcoin closed below it on 3.7 % of all days since 2010, most recently in June 2026. And like every fitted model, it can fail in future.

On November 7, 2026 bitcoin closed at $75’868. The trend was about $108’000 and the floor about $67’000. So the price stood at 0.70 times the trend, in the lower part of the corridor. How the model works in detail is explained in Bitcoin Power Law explained; its weaknesses, with figures, are in Criticism of the Bitcoin Power Law.

Stock-to-flow (S2F)

What it measures: scarcity, meaning the stock of all bitcoin divided by the bitcoin newly mined in a year.

The idea in one sentence: the scarcer bitcoin is, the higher its value, and because the flow halves with every halving, the price is supposed to rise roughly tenfold per halving.

Strength: as a measure of scarcity, stock-to-flow makes sense and is easy to understand. By that measure, bitcoin has been scarcer than gold since the 2024 halving. Up to its publication by the analyst PlanB in March 2019, the model also fitted the old prices well.

Weakness: it looks only at supply, not at demand. The halving is known weeks in advance and so cannot surprise the market with a tenfold price. And because the ratio doubles every four years, the model price grows without limit.

The record since 2019 is clear:

• 2021: after the 2020 halving the model line rose to about $55’000 to $71’000. The price reached it in spring 2021. That was the model's big moment.
• End of 2021: in June 2021 PlanB named $98’000 for the end of November and $135’000 for the end of December as his "worst case". Bitcoin closed at $56’950 on November 30, 2021 and at $46’220 on December 31.
• 2020 to 2024: the extended version S2FX from April 2020 expected an average of about $288’000 for these years. The highest daily close in that period was $67’525.
• Since 2024: after the 2024 halving the model line rose above $800’000. On November 7, 2026 it stood at about $846’000, more than eleven times the price.

Since April 17, 2021 bitcoin has not closed above the stock-to-flow model on a single day. As a price model, it is therefore considered falsified. The full comparison with all figures is in Power Law vs. Stock-to-Flow.

Rainbow Chart

What it measures: the price against a logarithmic curve with coloured bands around it, from blue ("fire sale") to red ("maximum bubble").

The idea in one sentence: bitcoin grows upwards at a slowing pace, and the colour shows you at a glance how hot the market is.

Strength: the picture is catchy, and the basic idea, growth that flattens out, is the same as in the Power Law.

Weakness: the bands have no derivation; they are drawn by hand. When the price fell below the lowest band in 2022, the operator, the site Blockchaincenter, redrew the bands. A model that is readjusted after a miss no longer tests itself.

Metcalfe's law and network value

What it measures: the value of a network relative to the number of its users. For bitcoin, active addresses are usually taken as a stand-in.

The idea in one sentence: the value of a network grows roughly with the square of its users, because every new user is connected to all the others.

Strength: it is the only model here that gives a reason why bitcoin should become more valuable. Santostasi also uses it to explain the exponent in the Power Law: users grow roughly with the third power of time, value with the square of users.

Weakness: nobody knows the real number of bitcoin users. An address is not a person, and anyone who holds bitcoin through an ETF or an exchange hardly shows up on the blockchain. Besides, the number of users often rises because the price rises, not the other way round. More in Metcalfe's law and bitcoin.

Moving averages: where does the price stand against its past?

200-week moving average

What it measures: the average closing price of the last 200 weeks, about four years, so roughly one whole cycle.

The idea in one sentence: if you buy bitcoin below its four-year average, you buy cheaper than the average of a whole cycle.

Strength: the line is simple, transparent and makes no assumption about the future. Historically the price was rarely below it: since May 2014, the first day with 200 weeks of data, on only 8 % of all days.

Weakness: it is not a hard floor. In November 2022 bitcoin fell to 0.66 times the 200-week average and stayed below it almost continuously from August 2022 to March 2023. Because the line only looks back, it says nothing about how high the price can rise.

Mayer Multiple

What it measures: the price divided by the average of the last 200 days.

The idea in one sentence: if the price is far above its 200-day average, the market is overheated; if it is below, it has cooled off.

Strength: Trace Mayer popularised the ratio and named 2.4 times as the threshold: buying above it had rarely paid off historically. That matches the data. The multiple was above 2.4 on just under 6 % of all days since 2011.

Weakness: the threshold comes from the early, wild years. The highs no longer reach it: at the 2017 all-time high the multiple was 3.78, in November 2021 1.48 and in October 2025 only 1.18. It was last above 2.4 on March 13, 2021.

On-chain: what did holders pay?

MVRV and realised price

What it measures: the market value of all bitcoin divided by the "realised" value. In the realised value, every coin counts at the price at which it last moved on the blockchain. The realised price is that value divided by the number of bitcoin, roughly the average cost basis of all holders.

The idea in one sentence: if the price is far above what holders paid on average, everyone sits on gains and is happy to sell; if it is below, the market is at a loss and the sellers are exhausted.

Strength: the model looks at real behaviour on the blockchain rather than only at the price. In the big bear markets, for example at the end of 2018 and in 2022, the price fell below the realised price, an MVRV below 1. Those were good buying opportunities.

Weakness: lost coins count at their old price for ever. When exchanges or ETF custodians move coins internally, the realised price changes without anyone having bought. And, as with the Mayer Multiple, the thresholds for a top have fallen with every cycle.

Signals for the top

Pi Cycle Top

What it measures: two averages of the price: the 111-day average and twice the 350-day average.

The idea in one sentence: when the short average rises above twice the long one, the rise is so steep that the cycle top is near.

Strength: Philip Swift introduced the indicator in 2019, and looking back it hit remarkably accurately. According to our data the lines crossed on April 6, 2013, on December 5, 2013 (one day after the top), on December 16, 2017 (the day of the top) and on April 11, 2021, three days before the interim high of April 14, 2021.

Weakness: the numbers 111 and 350 were chosen because they fitted the old tops. After that it failed: it did not signal the actual top of November 2021, and in the 2024/2025 cycle the lines did not cross at all. Anyone who waited for the signal missed the top of October 2025. On November 7, 2026 the short average stood at about half of twice the long one.

Four-year cycle

What it measures: the time since the last halving.

The idea in one sentence: about 12 to 18 months after each halving comes the top, about a year later the low, and then the next rise begins.

Strength: the rhythm held four times. Since 2016 the top came 525 to 546 days after the halving each time, most recently on October 6, 2025 at $124’673.

Weakness: four cycles are experience, not statistics. Interest rates, money supply and new buyers played a part every time. And because everyone knows the calendar, it can shift itself if enough people buy or sell earlier. All cycles compared are in The Bitcoin four-year cycle.

All models: the verdict

What to take away from the models

Almost all models show the same pattern, even the failed ones: the upward swings get smaller from cycle to cycle, while the lows stay a similar distance below the trend. Fixed thresholds such as a Mayer Multiple of 2.4 or a Pi Cycle cross come from a time when bitcoin was small and could rise tenfold in months.

For your plan, that means: take models as a yardstick, not a promise, and plan for the bad case. How low it can go matters more than how high.

That is why every tool on bitcoin-powerlaw.com calculates with the Power Law: with the floor as the cautious case, the trend as the middle case and the top band as the zone for partial sales. The formula and our own check are openly available in the methodology.