PULSEHAWK
The Bitcoin 4 year cycle, from halving to top
In the three completed four year cycles the top came 371, 525 and 546 days after the halving. The current cycle topped on day 534, on 6 October 2025. Every date below comes from the same source, so the four cycles can actually be compared.
Both counters update by themselves. They are plain arithmetic from two fixed dates, not a live price feed, and both are counted to 26 September 2026.
The four cycles, charted
| Cycle | Halving | Cycle top | Price at the top | Days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 28 Nov 2012 | 4 Dec 2013 | 1,137 USD | 371 |
| 2016 | 9 Jul 2016 | 16 Dec 2017 | 19,280 USD | 525 |
| 2020 | 11 May 2020 | 8 Nov 2021 | 67,562 USD | 546 |
| 2024 | 20 Apr 2024 | 6 Oct 2025 | 124,777 USD | 534 |
Read down the last column and the pattern is narrower than most people expect, but only for three of the four rows. The 2016, 2020 and 2024 cycles topped within 21 days of each other. The 2012 cycle topped 154 days earlier than any of them.
Why you will see other numbers
Search this question and you will find 366, 367 and 368 for the first cycle, and 525 or 526 for the second. We count 371 for the first. Almost nobody explains the difference, so here it is.
The top date is not a fact, it is a reading. Bitcoin trades on many venues at once. The 2017 peak lands on 16 December on CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap, and on 17 December on sites that read a different exchange. One day of difference moves the count by one.
The 2013 peak is where the readings part company. Intraday sources put it on 30 November 2013, which is where 367 comes from. The highest full-day price came four days later, on 4 December, and that is 371. Same halving, same method, a different peak because a full day and a single second are different measurements.
The halving date can shift too. The 2012 halving crossed midnight UTC, which is why some sources date it 27 November and others 28 November.
Our rule is simple. One source for all four rows, named on the page. A table that mixes sources produces numbers that look precise and cannot be compared.
What this does not tell you
It does not tell you when the next top comes. Three completed cycles are three data points, and one of them sits five months away from the other two. Anyone who turns four numbers into a date is guessing with extra steps.
It also does not tell you anything about price. We publish no price targets, in any format, ever. This page counts days between two dates that already happened.
How we count
Calendar days between the halving date and the cycle top date, both in UTC. The halving day itself is day zero, so a top on the next day would be day one. Halving dates come from the block at which the reward changed. Top dates and prices are the highest daily price in UTC from PulseHawk's own archive, 5,849 daily Bitcoin prices since August 2010, built from the blockchain.com market price series. Since 23 September 2026 that holds for all four rows, including the three completed ones, which until then carried CoinMarketCap readings and could not be compared with the fourth. All four cycle tops are now the same readings this site uses on the top to bottom page and the drawdown page, so the three pages cannot disagree. An intraday high from a single exchange is a different number and is never used here.
The live counters at the top of the page run from 20 April 2024 and 6 October 2025. They need no data source, which is why they cannot go stale or go wrong.
Questions people ask
371 days in the 2012 cycle, 525 in the 2016 cycle, 546 in the 2020 cycle and 534 in the 2024 cycle.
There is no single number. The four cycles so far peaked on day 371, 525, 546 and 534. The last three sit between 525 and 546.
20 April 2024, at block 840,000. The block reward fell from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC.
6 October 2025, at a full-day price of 124,777 US dollars. That is the highest daily price of the cycle in UTC. Sites quoting 126,198 dollars on 6 October are reading an intraday high from a single exchange, which is a different measurement.
Because they use different top dates, and sometimes a different halving date. See the section above. The gap is one or two days, never more.
No. It is a count of what happened. What it means is your call.
All of them are on this page with their dates. You can check every row against any price chart in about two minutes, and that is the point.