The Bitcoin Top Band: When Partial Sales Make Sense

What is the Bitcoin top band? The top band is the line through the five cycle highs since 2011. It shows how high above the floor the highs have reached so far, today 2.63 times the floor or 1.62 times the trend. In the upper half of the way from the trend up to the top band, the price was almost always lower a year later. That is where partial sales in small steps have made sense so far.

The question nobody asks at the top

In a downturn everyone asks: how much lower can it go? In an upswing hardly anyone asks: how high can it go at all? Yet that question decides whether you take something home at the next high or give it all back.

The Bitcoin top band answers it from the data: it shows how far Bitcoin rose above its fair value in every cycle so far. This article explains how the line is built, where it is today and what a partial sale at it would have brought in past cycles. The whole model behind it is explained in the guide to the Bitcoin Power Law.

What the Bitcoin top band is

The Power Law on this site has three lines. At the bottom lies the floor, the line where bear markets ended. In the middle the trend, the fair value the price swings around. At the top the top band.

The top band is not a forecast for the next high. It is a line through the past highs: through every all-time high that stood for at least a year. There have been five.

As of Nov 12, 2026, daily closes in US dollars. Each high was at most 12% off the line. Two highs stayed below it, three went above.

The pattern is clear: the highs stand ever lower above the floor. In 2013 Bitcoin still rose to 26 times the floor and eleven times its fair value, in 2025 to 2.7 times the floor, 54% above the fair value.

Unlike the floor, the top band is not fixed. When a new cycle high is added, it is recalculated, and with it the trend. With only the first four highs, it was 22% above the actual high in October 2025. Five points are few; that is the line's biggest weakness.

The top band on the chart: how far above the trend

The chart shows the price not in dollars but as a multiple of the trend. That way you see directly how hot a high was. The upper dotted line is the top band, the line at 0 the trend, the dashed one at the bottom the floor.

The peaks reach the top band or come close to it, and the line comes down cycle by cycle. Until Jan 2022 the floor runs at the same level below the trend. Since then the trend is the middle between floor and top band, so on this chart both lines move toward it, ever more slowly. Bitcoin swings less and less upward, while the lows have stayed at the floor. How to read log charts like this is explained in How to read the Bitcoin log chart.

Hot and Euphoria: the zones at the top band

Between the trend and the top band lie two zones. Hot begins halfway from the trend to the top band, measured on the log chart, today at 1.27 times the trend. Euphoria begins at the top band itself.

All daily closes since 2010, classified with today's lines. Important: the days within a cycle are alike, so the table describes five cycles, not thousands of independent cases.

The figure is clear all the same. If you bought in the Hot zone, you were almost always at a loss a year later. The median price a year later was only 0.55 times. For buyers that is a warning; for holders it is the moment to think about a partial sale. All five zones from Floor to Euphoria are presented in The Bitcoin valuation zones.

Why partial sales rather than selling everything

The top band says how high past highs reached. It doesn't say on which day the next one comes. In every cycle the price stayed in the Hot zone or above for weeks to months:

• 2013: on 151 days, first in April 2013 at $186; the high came eight months later at $1’135.
• 2017: on 126 days, first in November 2017 at $7’420; the high came six weeks later.
• 2021: on 383 days, first at the end of December 2020 at $28’878; the high came ten months later.
• 2025: on 283 days, first in November 2024 at $88’640; the high came eleven months later.

If you had sold everything on the first hot day, you would have missed most of the rise in 2013 and 2021. If you sold nothing, you gave back 53 to 93% in the bear market that followed. Partial sales don't solve this dilemma perfectly, but well enough: you sell in steps while the price is hot and keep most of it.

What partial sales at the top band would have brought

A simple rule, applied to all five cycles: when the price closes in the Hot zone or above, you sell 5% of your starting holding. After that, again no sooner than 30 days later, at most four times per cycle, so 20% in total. You buy back with the full proceeds on the first day after the high on which the price closes in Accumulation.

The table shows three things:

1. The rule always sold too early. On average it got 40 to 76% of the peak price. No rule hits the high itself.
2. It still came out ahead in every cycle. The buyback in the bear market was always cheaper than the average of the sales. 1 BTC became 1.10 to 1.70 BTC.
3. The advantage is shrinking. From +70% to +10%. The closer the highs are to the floor, the less there is to gain between selling and buying back.

Try your own prices. With no input, the "sell the top, buy back at the floor" calculator sells at today's top band and buys back at the floor a year later. You see how many bitcoin you would have afterwards and at what buyback price the sale no longer pays off:

Where the top band lies in the coming years

The top band rises every year, but more slowly than the floor and the trend. So Hot and the top band move closer to the fair value, a little less each year:

Model values, not a forecast. Euros and francs at the rate of Nov 12, 2026 (1 BTC = $71’461 = €64’490 = CHF 59’537). The multiples in brackets refer to the trend.

For partial sales this means two things. First, the gap is large today: the price would have to rise 94% to reach the start of the Hot zone and 147% to reach the top band. Second, the room gets smaller but doesn't disappear: in 2029 Hot still begins 18% above the trend and the top band lies 40% above it. Hot remains the top quarter of the band between floor and top band on the log chart. The model values up to 2040 are shown in the Bitcoin forecast 2030, 2035, 2040.

When partial sales make no sense

The top band is a tool for one situation, not for every one. Leave it alone in these cases:

• The price is below the trend. On Nov 12, 2026, it was 0.66 times. In Accumulation, where it stands today, the price was higher a year later on 100 % of days. Selling here is the most expensive decision.
• You would never buy back and you don't need the money. Then you swap a scarce asset for one that loses purchasing power every year.
• The sale costs you taxes that eat up the advantage. In Austria you pay 27.5% on gains from bitcoin bought from Mar 1, 2021, however long you hold. With a +10% advantage in the last cycle, hardly anything is left after tax. In Germany bitcoin is tax-free after a one-year holding period; in Switzerland price gains on private assets are usually tax-free (as of 2026). Details are in Bitcoin taxes in Germany and Bitcoin taxes in Austria.
• You sell everything. The point of a partial sale is that you can live with any outcome. Selling everything is a bet.

A partial sale does make sense, on the other hand, when the price is in the Hot zone or above and you have a purpose for the money: an expense, a buffer or a buyback at a set price. How to turn this into a written rule with a core holding and amounts is shown in Taking Bitcoin profits: partial sales by rules instead of emotions.

The limits of the top band

The top band is the least certain part of the model. Three reasons:

1. Five points. A line through five highs almost always fits well. Leaving out one at a time, the other four predicted it to within 22%. For the next high that is a rough guide, not a target.
2. It changes. With every new cycle high the line is recalculated. If the next high stays far below it or goes far above, the line shifts.
3. It may not be reached. In 2013 and 2025 the price never closed above the top band. A rule for Euphoria only would have sold nothing in those cycles. That is why the rule above already starts in the Hot zone.

If the pattern holds, the top band will still be 54% above the floor and 24% above the trend in 2033. According to the model, the upward excess gets smaller with every cycle but doesn't disappear. Whether it turns out that way will only show in the next cycle. The arguments against the model are collected in Criticism of the Power Law: the model's weaknesses.

Where the price stands today between the floor and the top band, you can see live: