Cycle timing · Bitcoin
The Pi Cycle Bottom, explained
The mirror image of the Pi Cycle Top: instead of flagging peaks, it marks an accumulation zone — the long stretch in which Bitcoin’s past bear markets have bottomed out. How its 150-day and 471-day average-price lines work together, and what opens the zone.
- Fast line
- 150d
- Slow line
- 471d
- Zone opens
- Cross down
- Zone closes
- Cross up
average price, recent days counting most
plain average price, then ×0.745
the fast line drops below the slow one
the fast line climbs back above it
What is the Pi Cycle Bottom?
A cycle-timing indicator built as the mirror image of the Pi Cycle Top. Where that one watches two moving averages — running averages of Bitcoin's price over a set number of days — meet at a cycle peak, this pair meets to mark an accumulation zone: the stretch in which past bear markets have bottomed out.
Same shape, opposite purpose. Two moving averages, a fixed multiplier, and a cross between them that opens the zone — no on-chain data, no sentiment measure, just price.
Why 150 and 471 days, and why ×0.745?
The Pi Cycle Bottom compares Bitcoin's 150-day average price, weighted towards the most recent days, against its plain 471-day average price, scaled down by a factor of 0.745. Both the periods and the multiplier come from a public indicator it is built on built specifically to find the accumulation counterpart to Philip Swift's original Pi Cycle Top.
None of these three numbers — 150, 471, 0.745 — comes from how the market works. They were fitted to past cycle lows, the same way the top indicator's 111/350 pair was fitted to past cycle highs. The numbers work because of what they measure, not because of any underlying law they express.
Does it matter which line is on top?
Yes, and the score is built around it. Scoring the raw distance between the two lines would be blind to direction: after a bottom, the gap can keep shrinking while risk is actually rising, so the score would move the wrong way.
The risk score measures how far the 150-day line sits above the adjusted 471-day line, against the widest gap ever recorded. Whenever the 150-day line is at or below the adjusted line, risk reads zero. The fast line dipping under the slow one is the event that opens the accumulation zone, and it climbing back above closes it. Same mechanic as the Pi Cycle Top, pointed at the other end of the cycle.
What does the risk score actually mean?
A low score — ≤20% — means the fast line is close to, or already below, the adjusted slow line: the market compressing toward the territory where past accumulation windows opened. A high score means the fast line is running far above it — with 100% reserved for a record-wide gap. High risk is simply "far from a bottom signal"; it is not a call on how late in the cycle you are, and the score stays pinned near 100% for long stretches whenever a bull run keeps setting new record gaps.
So a falling risk score isn't predicting a bottom is coming. It's measuring how far above its long-run trend the market currently trades, and flagging when that distance collapses toward the levels where deep accumulation windows have historically opened.
Has it actually caught Bitcoin's major bottoms?
The accumulation zone has lined up with Bitcoin's early 2015 low, the grinding 2018–2019 bear-market bottom, and the 2022 bottom. Three bear markets is a small sample — enough to see a pattern repeating, not enough to call it proven.
High risk is not a cycle-timing call
The risk score is the gap above the slow line measured against the widest gap ever recorded. A high reading only means "far from a bottom signal" — it says nothing about how late in the cycle you are, and it sits pinned near 100% whenever the gap sets a new record.
Bottoms are messier than tops
A cycle peak is often a single sharp day. A cycle low is usually months of price grinding sideways. This indicator can sit inside its accumulation zone for a long stretch without marking one clean "the" low.
It stands on its own
Unlike the Pi Cycle Top, this reading is not one of the weighted inputs behind the Bitcoin or Ethereum Heatmeter score. It is one signal, read on its own terms, and it sits best alongside the other measures you already follow.
Only a handful of bear markets to learn from
Bitcoin has been through a small number of full cycles, and each one has behaved differently. A mechanism fitted to past cycle lows is not guaranteed to describe whatever the next bottom looks like.
A top is usually a day. A bottom is usually a season — which is why the zone this indicator draws is a stretch between two crossing points, not a single day.
How do you read the Pi Cycle Bottom chart?
Watch the cross of the two lines. The blue accumulation background opens the day the 150-day line crosses under the adjusted 471-day line, and closes when it crosses back above. The risk score falling toward zero tells you that cross is getting near.
A long blue stretch is normal. Real bottoms take months, not a single day, so this indicator sitting in its accumulation zone for an extended period is expected behaviour — it is describing a season, not naming a date.
Where it fits
The Pi Cycle Bottom is a timing indicator for one specific condition: how compressed price currently is against two long-run moving averages. It says nothing about valuation, on-chain activity, holder behaviour or anything else — same narrowness as its top counterpart, by design.
Where it differs from the Pi Cycle Top here is in the composite scores. The Pi Cycle Top carries real weight inside both the Bitcoin and Ethereum Heatmeter. The Pi Cycle Bottom currently does not — it is a reading on its own. That makes it worth pairing with the other signals you already trust, rather than treating a low reading here as confirmation by itself.
Common questions
What is the Pi Cycle Bottom indicator?
A Bitcoin cycle-timing indicator built as the mirror of the Pi Cycle Top. It compares Bitcoin’s average price over the last 150 days, weighted towards the most recent days, against its plain average over the last 471 days multiplied by 0.745, and turns how far the fast line sits above the slow one into a 0–100 risk score. When the fast line drops below the slow one, risk reads zero and the accumulation zone opens; it closes when the fast line climbs back above.
How is it different from the Pi Cycle Top?
The Pi Cycle Top uses a 111-day average and a doubled 350-day average, and it flags tops. The Pi Cycle Bottom uses different periods entirely — a 150-day average weighted towards recent days, and a plain 471-day average scaled down by 0.745 — and it is read as a buying signal rather than a peak signal. They share the same basic shape: two average-price lines, a multiplier, and a moment where the two meet. But they are separate calculations, tuned for opposite ends of the cycle.
Why 150 and 471 days, and why ×0.745?
These periods and the 0.745 multiplier come from the public indicator this one is built on — they were fitted to past Bitcoin cycle lows, the same way the Pi Cycle Top’s 111/350-day pair was fitted to past highs. There is no separate reason these exact numbers should work: they were found by looking back at what fitted, not worked out from how the market functions.
Does it matter which line is on top?
Yes. The risk score only counts the gap in one direction: how far the 150-day line sits ABOVE the adjusted 471-day line, measured against the widest gap ever recorded. Whenever the 150-day line is at or below the adjusted line, risk reads zero. The fast line dropping below the slow one is the event that opens the accumulation zone, and it climbing back above closes it — the same mechanic as the Pi Cycle Top, pointed the other way.
Has it actually caught Bitcoin’s major bottoms?
The accumulation zone has lined up with Bitcoin’s 2015 low, the 2018–2019 bear-market bottom, and the 2022 bottom. That is three bear markets — enough to see a pattern repeating, not enough to call it proven.
Is the Pi Cycle Bottom part of the Bitcoin Heatmeter?
No. The Bitcoin and Ethereum Heatmeter composites weight the Pi Cycle Top as one of their cycle-timing inputs, but the Pi Cycle Bottom is not currently one of the weighted components in either composite. It exists as its own standalone chart.
Related guides
Others in price & cycle models — What price is doing relative to its own history, trend and long-run models.
- Log Regression BandPrice against a long-run trend line drawn through each coin’s whole history, split into six value zones.
- Rainbow ChartThe same long-run trend line drawn as nine coloured bands, from deep value to bubble territory.
- Golden Ratio MultiplierPrice against multiples of the 350-day moving average, a ladder that has caught intermediate cycle highs.
- 200-Week MA HeatmapHow far price sits above its 200-week average — a floor Bitcoin has only briefly traded under, at the deepest lows.
- MVRVWhat every Bitcoin is worth today against what it last changed hands for — a read on collective paper profit.
Every indicator we track — the full glossary.
See the live chart, not the schematic
Everything above is how it works. On the live Pi Cycle Bottom chart you get the real 150-day and 471-day lines plotted against actual price, the current risk score, and the accumulation zone shaded from the day the fast line drops below the slow one to the day it climbs back — updated daily, free with an account.