When to buy Bitcoin?

As of 11 November 2026, the live chain height was 975,401, according to Blockchain.com and Mempool.space. At that height the subsidy is still 3.125 BTC, and the next scheduled cut is still block 1,050,000. Blockchain.com reported 20,110,596 BTC already issued (20,110,596,000,000,000 satoshis). CoinGecko reported a circulating supply of 20,110,575 BTC at 07:05 UTC the same day — about 95.8% of the 21 million cap. Small differences between those two figures come from counting methods, not from a change in the cap.

The issuance schedule is a monetary fact. It is not, by itself, a timing signal for when to buy Bitcoin. Halving dates are known in advance. Prices are not.

What past cycles actually show

People often treat "when to buy Bitcoin" as a synonym for "buy in the year of a halving" or "buy the exact bottom." The record is more awkward than that, and it is a record of the past, not a promise that the next cycle will rhyme.

For the first two completed halvings, daily market prices are taken from Blockchain.com's Market Price (USD) series, retrieved from its daily API on 11 November 2026:

• On the first halving day, 28 November 2012, that series printed $12.50.
• The same series then reached $1,136.90 on 5 December 2013, and later fell to $172.00 on 15 January 2015 — a decline of about 85% from that 2013 daily high.
• On the second halving day, 9 July 2016, the series printed $663.00.

From August 2017, StackPoint's own chart uses closed weekly BINANCE:BTCUSDT candles, so later prices below are daily open, high, low, and close from Binance's BTCUSDT kline API, also retrieved on 11 November 2026:

• Third halving, 11 May 2020: open $8,722.77, high $9,168.00, low $8,200.00, close $8,561.52.
• Subsequent cycle high, 10 November 2021: intraday high $69,000.00, close $64,882.43.
• Subsequent cycle low, 21 November 2022: intraday low $15,476.00, close $15,781.29 — about 78% below the 2021 high.
• Fourth halving, 20 April 2024: open $63,818.01, high $65,419.00, low $63,090.07, close $64,940.59.
• Subsequent recorded high, 6 October 2025: intraday high $126,199.63, close $124,658.54. CoinGecko independently lists an all-time high of $126,080 at 10:57 UTC on that same day.
• Lowest Binance print in 2026 up to 11 November: $57,800.19 on 1 July 2026, with that day's close at $60,024.00 — about 54% below the October 2025 high. That July figure is the year-to-date low on this exchange. It is not proof that a new cycle bottom is complete.
• On the morning of 11 November 2026, Binance last traded near $73,584 at about 07:05 UTC, after a daily open of $73,796.06. CoinGecko printed $73,485 at 07:05 UTC.

Two observations follow, and both come with a hard limit: this is in-sample history.

First, buying near a deep cycle decline would, in those past episodes, have been a very different entry from buying near a later cycle high. That is the intuition behind cycle accumulation. It is not a guarantee. A later price can still trade far below a buy made in a lower zone.

Second, the size of the move from one halving to the next high was not constant. From the Blockchain.com print of $12.50 on 28 November 2012 to $1,136.90 on 5 December 2013 is a very large multiple. From the Binance close of $64,940.59 on 20 April 2024 to the later high of $126,199.63 on 6 October 2025 is about +94%. Past rates of gain did not repeat on cue, and there is no contract that says the next cycle must.

None of those figures tells you when to buy Bitcoin now. They only show why a cycle-aware reading looks at accumulation and distribution over years, not at a single headline day.

Cycle accumulation is not a prediction of the exact bottom

A weekly cycle reading tries to answer a narrower question than "what is the perfect price?" It asks whether the market still looks like a lower accumulation zone, a later distribution zone, or neither.

That is slower than most short-term trading, and it will miss exact lows and exact highs. The frozen R4 research model on this site only decides after a weekly BINANCE:BTCUSDT candle has closed (the week opens Monday 00:00 UTC). Markers stay on the decision candle. Paper fills in the example ledger use the next week's open, with a 0.1% fee and $0.02 of slippage, and decisions are at least four weeks apart. Those rules are described in more detail on How R4 works.

The model may accumulate spot in cash tranches while a lower zone is confirmed and the weekly close is still inside that frozen band. Invalidation pauses new buys; it does not automatically sell coins the example ledger already holds. At a later cycle top, if a distribution phase is active, the model can reduce the coins it already holds. It does not short the market and it does not use leverage.

This is still a research label, not a personal plan. The 2017–2026 sample was already known when R4 was frozen. It is in-sample and has not been validated out of sample.

Dollar-cost averaging versus a lump sum

"When to buy Bitcoin" is also asked in a different way: should a person invest a lump sum immediately, or spread purchases over time as dollar-cost averaging (DCA)?

Those two ideas come from ordinary portfolio practice, not from the Bitcoin halving calendar. In July 2012, Vanguard published a research note titled "Dollar-cost averaging just means taking risk later." Using rolling ten-year periods in the United States (1926–2011), the United Kingdom (1976–2011), and Australia (1984–2011), the authors compared investing a lump sum immediately into a stock/bond portfolio with moving the same cash in equal instalments over 6 to 36 months (12 months was the baseline). After the DCA window ended, both portfolios were held to the end of year ten.

On average, lump-sum investing outperformed that 12-month DCA approach approximately two-thirds of the time in each of the three markets. For a 60% equity / 40% bond allocation in the United States, the paper's figures were 67% of periods for the lump sum and 33% for DCA. The authors also reported average ending values, starting from $1,000,000, of $2,450,264 for the lump sum and $2,395,824 for 12-month DCA. Their explanation was straightforward: stocks and bonds returned more than cash over the study period, so staying in cash while DCA ran was, on average, a delay in taking market risk. Lengthening the DCA window made lump-sum outperformance more common, reaching about 90% of U.S. ten-year spans when DCA was stretched to 36 months.

Those numbers are historical stock and bond results. They are not Bitcoin results, they are not a forecast, and they do not say what you should do with a sum of money today. Vanguard also noted that DCA can reduce the chance of investing immediately before a decline, at the cost of expected long-term return if markets rise. Dollar-cost averaging does not guarantee a profit and does not protect against losses when prices fall.

StackPoint does not run a DCA product and does not tell you how much or when to invest. The R4 buy path is also not the same thing as calendar DCA. In a funded example epoch the model can use at most four cash slices, each 25% of the example budget, and only while a confirmed accumulation zone is still valid and no reduce has started. Unused slices stay unused if the zone is left or invalidated. That is a cycle-zone rule, not a monthly standing order.

How the R4 signal reads accumulation, reduce, and HOLD

The public board compresses the weekly model into a few states. The precise wording matters, because HOLD is easy to misread.

• BUY ACCUMULATE means a new buy tranche was marked on that weekly close, inside a confirmed lower zone, using 25% of the example cash budget. One epoch can print at most four such buys. On the published sample the model printed two.
• REDUCE SPOT means a reduce tranche was marked on that weekly close. Each reduce sells the remaining quantity divided by (4 minus reduces already filled): 25%, then 25%, then 25%, and a fourth reduce would close the last 25%. A distribution phase lasts at most 16 closed weeks. On the published sample the model printed three reduces, and the window ended before a fourth.
• HOLD, after those reduces, means the example ledger is still holding the remaining core — right now 25% of the coins bought — and is waiting for a new accumulation zone. It is not a hold of the full position from the start of the cycle, and it is not a signal that now is a good time to buy. While this remainder is held, new buy tranches cannot start in the same epoch. A later distribution phase can still sell the last 25%. A new funded epoch, with new buy tranches, starts only after the example position is flat and a later qualified accumulation zone appears.
• WAIT means no example spot is held, and the model is waiting for a confirmed accumulation zone.

The example ledger starts at a paper budget (for example $10,000). It is not a live balance. Nothing on the board is a broker order. For the method, the marker table, and the limits of the frozen sample, see the live signal page and How R4 works.