In February 2013, when Bitcoin was trading around $25, one of the early members of the crypto community published on a specialized forum a simple formula derived in Excel. More than a decade later, this model continues to surprise with its accuracy, and its extrapolation promises the coin $251,000 by January 2030 and $1.19 million by September 2036.
How the formula was born
There was no complex theory behind the model. The author compiled into a table all the Bitcoin price history available at that time, asked Excel to build a trend line, and obtained a power function, the result of which he simply recorded. The purpose of the publication was polemical — to prove that the price bubble formed in 2011, and that the 2013 growth was not one.
The formula looks like this: price equals 4.42 × 10⁻¹⁷ multiplied by the number of days since January 3, 2009, raised to the power of 5.6. That week, the calculation gave about $27 against an actual price of $25.
Today the model points to approximately $97,000, while Bitcoin is trading around $84,000. The price holds slightly below the line but does not fall beneath it.
Peaks and troughs
Bitcoin does not move exactly along the line. At the cycle peak it soared above it, at the bottom it fell below. However, with each cycle the amplitude of these swings shrank:
- in 2013 the peak was about 16 times above the line;
- in 2017 — about 9 times;
- in 2021 — about 4 times;
- in October 2025 — about 1.8 times.
The lows usually lay around half or three-quarters of the line. The 2022 bottom came at approximately 0.6 of it, and the minimum of that year turned out to be not far from the same level.
In the crypto community, it is believed that the swings will continue to compress, and the halvings of 2028 and 2032 will still set the rhythm of the market. Under such a scenario, the picture could look like this:
- peak at the end of 2029 — about $510,000;
- minimum of 2030–2031 — about $175,000;
- peak of 2033 — about $1.14 million;
- minimum of 2034–2035 — about $456,000.
The Stock-to-Flow forecasting model, which links price to the scarcity of the asset, works on a similar principle.
Cryptalist analysis: The power-law trend demonstrates stable descriptive power over a long horizon, but its predictive value is limited: the model is calibrated on a historical period with fundamentally different liquidity and institutional structure of the market. The compression of cycle amplitude confirms the maturation of the asset, but extrapolation to $1.19 million requires assumptions about the preservation of the current dynamics of scarcity and capital inflow that are not guaranteed.