ICP drawdowns and recoveries, measured against Bitcoin's

The first reason is age. Bitcoin's record spans more than a decade and several market cycles; ICP's spans a single cycle and part of the next. A long series contains a wider variety of conditions, and a short one is more likely to be dominated by the particular conditions of its own period.

The second is the starting point. ICP's series begins at its listing, which is a period of price discovery rather than a steady state. The first months of a newly listed token are not representative of its later trading, and a drawdown measured from a listing-period peak is measured from an unusually volatile reference point.

The third is supply. ICP's circulating supply has changed substantially since listing, through the network's vesting and release schedule. A price series alone does not capture that, and a drawdown measured in price terms can differ from one measured in capitalisation terms. The market-capitalisation history page works through that effect directly.

The general point is covered on this site's drawdown explained page, which sets out why a drawdown is not the same thing as a loss and why the reference peak matters.

The comparison rests on one complete ICP episode at most. Any statement about ICP's drawdown behaviour is therefore a statement about a single historical sequence, and single sequences are poor guides to future behaviour.

The series are venue-aggregated daily closes. Intraday extremes are not captured, so a drawdown measured on daily closes will understate the deepest intraday decline. The same limitation applies to both assets, so the comparison is at least consistent, but neither figure is the true maximum decline.

Finally, this page does not claim that ICP's drawdowns were caused by Bitcoin's. Two assets declining in the same period may be responding to a common market factor. The page on ICP during major BTC moves treats the timing question separately and explicitly as association rather than causation.