Bitcoin Risk Metric

Is Bitcoin historically cheap or expensive right now? One composite score from 0 to 1, blending four price signals percentile-ranked on more than a decade of weekly history — updated every week.

Bitcoin risk score today
0.27
Discount territory
BTC price $66,601 · data through Jul 16, 2026
Discount
Neutral
Elevated
Expensive
0.000.300.500.601.00
From score to signal
The War Chest strategy turns this score into a precise weekly buy signal — how much to buy, when to hold cash back, when to deploy the reserve. Your exact amount depends on your plan and your reserve.
Get your weekly signal
The four components

Each component is a percentile vs the full weekly history: 0.00 = cheapest Bitcoin has ever been on that signal, 1.00 = most expensive.

Power-law trend deviation (50%)0.22
Price vs 200-week average (30%)0.25
Halving cycle position (10%)0.57
12-week momentum (10%)0.29
Risk score history (full Kraken weekly history)
0.300.500.60Oct 2013Dec 2016Feb 2020May 2023Jul 2026
View the history as a table (year by year)
YearYear-end riskYear-end price
20130.79$754
20140.31$319
20150.24$430
20160.49$1,133
20170.98$15,186
20180.29$3,886
20190.33$7,174
20200.87$36,877
20210.74$43,410
20220.16$16,849
20230.44$42,850
20240.70$94,381
20250.48$87,500
20260.27$66,601
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Updated every week from Kraken's full BTC/USD history. Computed on real Kraken weekly prices. The risk score is a historical-percentile indicator, not a prediction. This is an educational tool, not investment advice.

How the risk metric works

The score answers one question: compared with its own history, how expensive is Bitcoin today? 0 means historically cheap, 1 means historically expensive. It is not a prediction — it is a position: where today's price sits inside everything the market has done since 2013.

Four components feed the score. Power-law trend deviation (50%) measures how far the price sits above or below Bitcoin's long-term growth curve, fitted on the full history. Price versus the 200-week moving average (30%) compares today's price with the market's favourite long-term support line. Halving cycle position (10%) tracks where we are inside the four-year halving rhythm. And 12-week momentum (10%) captures how fast the price has moved recently.

Each component is percentile-ranked against the entire weekly history, then blended with the weights above. The calibration always runs on the full history — never on a filtered range — so a 0.70 means the same thing in 2026 as it did in 2017.

How to read the score

  • ≥ 0.60 — expensive territory. Bitcoin is historically stretched: a rules-based plan stops buying and builds a cash reserve instead.
  • 0.50 – 0.60 — elevated. The upper edge of normal: buys shrink and most of the weekly budget is set aside.
  • 0.30 – 0.50 — neutral. Business as usual: steady weekly buys, the reserve is held.
  • < 0.30 — discount territory. Historically cheap: buys are multiplied and the reserve is deployed.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Bitcoin risk metric?

A composite score from 0 to 1 blending four price signals — power-law trend deviation (50%), price vs the 200-week moving average (30%), halving cycle position (10%) and 12-week momentum (10%) — each percentile-ranked on the full weekly history.

How often is the score updated?

Weekly, when Bitcoin's weekly candle closes. The page always renders from the latest Kraken weekly history — the score you see is computed on the freshest closed week.

Where does the data come from?

From Kraken's public weekly OHLC history (BTC/USD), covering the full period since 2013. No sampling, no filtering — every closed week enters the calibration.

Why percentiles instead of raw values?

Raw signals live on different scales — a log-price residual and a moving-average ratio can't be averaged directly. Ranking each one against its own full history puts them all on the same 0-to-1 scale, and keeps the score's meaning stable across cycles.

Does a high score predict a crash?

No. The score is a valuation thermometer, not a forecast: it says how expensive Bitcoin is versus its own history, and nothing about what happens next week. Rules-based strategies use it to size buys, not to time tops.

Is this investment advice?

No. This is an educational indicator computed from public price data. Past behaviour does not guarantee future results, and you remain solely responsible for your investment decisions.

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