Bitcoin's Return Analysis and Expectations: TBL Weekly #149
Dear Readers,
Looks like the Golden Cross continues to deliver for bitcoin. Last night, we reached a new all-time high, which prompted Nik to hit us with his personal target for this current bull run (which we will show later in this post). After he shared his target with the team, we were left thinking about historical performances, expectations, and forecasts.
As many of you know, analyzing returns is an art in and of itself. From retail investors to mutual fund managers, we all want to know three things: (1) How much return did an investment yield? (2) How much risk did we take on to obtain that return? And (3) what does the future hold for the investment?
In today’s article, we will walk you through
A simple analysis of bitcoin’s returns;
Compare bitcoin’s returns with other asset classes; and,
Our 2026 Price Calls: create some basic expectations using this analysis
So, without further ado, let’s dive into TBL Weekly #149.
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Bitcoin’s monthly returns
Let’s look at a heatmap of bitcoin’s monthly returns since 2012:
There are many numbers throughout the map, but let’s focus on the very last row: average return for each month on the calendar. Notice how November stands out like a sore thumb as one of the highest-yielding months in bitcoin’s history, at 44%. However, there’s a clear reason why. Back in November 2013, bitcoin incurred a 453% return—there’s some clear right-skewness in the data.
In an attempt to find the best yielding month in bitcoin’s history, the median observation is therefore a better anchor point for expectations. As the table below shows, October seems to be the real winner for a couple of reasons:
