How to Read the Bitcoin Log Chart: The Logarithmic Scale Explained

How do you read a bitcoin log chart? On a logarithmic scale, each gridline stands for ten times the one before. Equal distances therefore mean equal percentages, not equal dollars: a jump from 1’000 to 2’000 is exactly as tall as one from 50’000 to 100’000. That way you see 16 years of price history in one picture without the early years disappearing.

Why a normal bitcoin chart misleads you

When you open a price app, you usually see a linear scale. On it, every new swing looks bigger than all the ones before, and the years up to 2016 are a flat line. If you look at bitcoin this way, you think the last crash was the worst and the early years meaningless.

Both are wrong. On Jul 18, 2010, one bitcoin cost 9 US cents ($0.09); on Nov 12, 2026, $71’461 (€64’490, CHF 59’537). That is 832’000 times as much. A chart meant to show this range honestly needs a different axis.

That is why the charts on bitcoin-powerlaw.com, from the Bitcoin Power Law to the zones, almost always use the logarithmic scale. This article shows you how to read it and where it can mislead you too.

Linear or logarithmic: the difference

For your wealth, percentages are what count. A 50% loss hits you just as hard with €5’000 in bitcoin as with €500’000. That is why the log chart is usually the better view for long-term holders.

The bitcoin log chart: each step a factor of 10

This is what the whole history looks like on the logarithmic scale. Move your mouse or finger over the chart to see, for every day, the price, its multiple of the trend, and the trend, floor and top band.

The gridlines on the left jump from 1 cent through 1 dollar and 1’000 dollars to 1 million. Between two lines there is always a factor of 10. This is how you read how tall a move is:

This leads to a common reading error: the midpoint between $10’000 and $100’000 is not $55’000 but $31’623. The upper prices of a step crowd together. $80’000 and $100’000 sit at almost the same height, even though there are 25% between them.

The same data on the linear scale

Now the same chart with a linear axis. Every dollar is equally tall.

Here you see what the log chart hides: the crash after October 2025 cost more dollars per bitcoin than any before it. In return, everything before 2017 is a line on the floor. All three lines rise here every day, the top band above the trend, the trend above the floor. All three get steeper in dollars, because the trend and the top band are each a multiple of the floor. Floor and trend drift apart in dollars, even though the trend has been getting closer to the floor in relative terms since 2022.

Percent instead of dollars: the bear markets compared

The difference is clearest in the big crashes. The table shows each one from the highest close to the lowest after it, in dollars and in percent:

As of Nov 12, 2026; the 2026 low is the low so far. In dollars, the latest crash was the biggest; in percent, the smallest. On the linear chart it looks enormous, on the log chart it is the flattest. For someone who got in in 2011 or 2025, only the percentage counts, because that is how much their holdings shrank.

How the cycles fit together is explained in The bitcoin four-year cycle.

Log-log: the Power Law view

On the ordinary log chart, only the price axis is logarithmic; time runs evenly. There, floor and trend are curves that slowly flatten. The Power Law also puts time on a logarithmic axis, counted in days since the genesis block on Jan 3, 2009:

On this scale the floor becomes a straight line: it is 0.42 × Power Law, the published formula. That is exactly what the name means: the price follows a power of time. Until January 2022 the trend is a straight line too: the Power Law line itself, parallel above the floor at 2.38 times. Since then it bends towards the floor, to 1.62 times today. The top band bends towards the floor as well: it gets closer every year, ever more slowly, and never touches it. The trend stays between the two.

This leads to the most important reading error of all: a straight line on the normal log chart means growth by the same percentage every year. If you draw a straight line through old highs there and extend it, you expect growth to stay equally fast forever. That is how the stock-to-flow model drifted ever further off, as you can read in Power Law vs. stock-to-flow.

Reading trend, floor and zones on the log chart

The floor is at 42 % of the Power Law line, and the trend today is 1.62 times the floor. Because the log chart shows ratios, you can see there how the gap between the two lines has been shrinking since 2022: 0.38 steps until then (factor 2.38), 0.21 steps on Nov 12, 2026 (factor 1.62), and 0.14 steps in early 2030 (factor 1.39). On the linear chart, by contrast, the gap in dollars opens up year after year.

You read the valuation zones the same way, because on the log chart their boundaries lie exactly halfway between two lines. Accumulation runs from the floor to the midpoint between floor and trend, today up to 0.79 times the trend. Fair lies around the trend and ends at the midpoint between trend and top band, today at 1.27 times. Above that, Hot begins and runs up to the top band, today at 1.62 times the trend. Above the top band lies Euphoria. The midpoint is the log chart's midpoint, just as $31’623 lies between 10’000 and 100’000: the square root of the product of both values.

On Nov 12, 2026, the price was 0.66 times the trend, in the Accumulation zone and 6.6% above the floor. On the log chart the price almost hugs the floor, and the way to the trend looks short. In percent it is still 52%. What the zones have meant historically is explained in The bitcoin valuation zones. The zones with today's amounts:

The top band does not run parallel: it approaches the floor because the cycle highs also came ever closer to the floor, 37 times the floor in 2011, 2.7 times in 2025. On the log chart you see this as a funnel that keeps narrowing and never closes: the top band stays above the trend, the trend above the floor. That is why all four zones up to the top band get narrower every year, and Hot today already begins at 1.27 times the trend.

Worked example: what height on the chart means for your money

What your own holdings would at least be worth in a few years if bitcoin then sits only on the floor is worked out by the floor calculator:

How to read a log chart in five steps

1. Look at the axis. If it says 1, 10, 100, 1’000, it is logarithmic. If it says 0, 50’000, 100’000, it is linear. Many apps switch this with "Log" or "Logarithmic".
2. Read heights as percentages. A third of a step is a doubling, a whole step ten times. Only then convert into money.
3. Measure the distance to the trend, not to the last high. The multiple of the trend tells you the zone. Today's value is on the Power Law page.
4. Check whether time is logarithmic. Only on log-log is the floor a straight line. The trend runs parallel above it until January 2022 and then bends towards the floor. If you draw a straight line on the normal log chart, you are assuming fixed growth.
5. Switch to linear for money questions. How many euros a setback costs is shown better by the linear scale.

When to use which scale

For questions spanning years, use the log chart: how expensive is bitcoin measured against its history? Was the last crash unusual? Is the price close to the Power Law floor?

For questions about weeks or your account, use the linear scale: how many euros have you lost today? How far is it to your sell limit? Over a few months the two scales hardly differ anyway.

You only need the log-log chart if you want to check the Power Law yourself. How the model is calculated and where it has weaknesses is in the methodology and in Criticism of the Power Law. You can switch both axes yourself in the academy, stage "Understand & secure".