Comparisons

Bitcoin's record, set against itself

Almost every useful question about Bitcoin is a comparison. Was this cycle like the last one? Did a steady schedule beat a single purchase? Which measure actually describes the return you earned? This hub collects the pages that answer those questions from the record, with the windows, assumptions and limits of each comparison stated on the page rather than left to the reader to infer.

A comparison is only as good as the two things being compared, and Bitcoin's history makes that unusually hard. The asset is young, its market structure has changed repeatedly, and the windows that look natural — a calendar year, a four-year cycle, the period since a halving — are conventions rather than natural units. Each page in this section therefore names the window it uses, states where that window begins and ends, and says what the comparison cannot tell you. Where a series is still running, it is labelled as truncated rather than extended to a tidy endpoint.

Nothing here is a forecast, and no comparison is a recommendation. The pages describe what has happened and measure it carefully; what you conclude from that is yours to decide. Where a calculation would genuinely help — the return on a purchase, the outcome of a steady accumulation plan — the writing points to a tool that does that work properly rather than embedding a calculator in the reference material.

Cycle Against Cycle

Has each cycle really been the same shape as the last?

Bitcoin's history is usually told as a sequence of four-year cycles, each anchored to a halving, and the implication is that each one rhymes with the one before. This strand tests that claim against the record rather than repeating it. It sets the completed cycles side by side — how far each advanced from its low, how deep it then fell, and how long the whole episode lasted — and it does the same for the halving windows, labelling the most recent one as truncated rather than extrapolating it. The pattern is real, but the episodes differ enough in length and depth that treating the rhythm as a schedule is a mistake.

Start with Cycle Comparison

Strategy Against Strategy

Does the way you buy matter as much as when you buy?

The two strategies most often recommended to a reader who does not want to time the market are a single lump-sum purchase and a steady accumulation schedule, and the comparison between them is usually settled with a slogan. This strand settles it with the record instead. It runs both approaches over the same windows and shows that the answer depends almost entirely on the start date: a lump sum wins when the window opens before a rise and loses badly when it opens before a decline, while a schedule spreads that risk across the whole period. The pages here state the assumptions plainly and are honest about the fact that neither approach is a forecast.

Start with Lump Sum vs DCA

Measures Against Measures

Which number should you actually use to describe a return?

A return can be described in several ways, and the choice between them changes the story more than most readers expect. This strand takes the measures one at a time. It explains what a compound annual growth rate does to a volatile series, why a drawdown is not the same thing as a loss, why a volatility figure without its window says very little, and how a cost basis is calculated once there is more than one purchase to average. Each page works through the calculation from the published record and then sets out the specific ways the measure is misread. Read together, they are the toolkit for every comparison on this hub.

Start with CAGR Explained

Every page in this section

The strands above compare Bitcoin with its own record. This is the full contents of the section, grouped by what is being set against what, so you can go straight to the one you need.

Network Against Network

Bitcoin's design set against the other networks it is most often measured against, judged on each network's own stated goals rather than on a single scoreboard.

Form Against Form

The same asset held in different ways: a token that represents bitcoin against the coin itself, and a layer that settles on the base chain against one that runs its own consensus behind a peg.

The reference pages behind the comparisons

The strands above explain the comparisons. These pages hold the underlying record and the methodology, for when you want to check a figure or follow a source.

More of the measured record

The comparisons above are built from the return record. These pages carry the rest of it, including the rolling windows and the extremes.