Turning on the Spigot

Bitcoin hit its all-time high around $126,000 in October 2025.

At around $86,000 as I write, we’re a ways off from that. Right now, most investors are asking when (or if) we’ll ever see those old highs again.

Too few are asking a more interesting question: Why didn’t Bitcoin go much higher during its last peak?

After all, the timing of the peak was spot on.

Bitcoin tends to top out around 17.5 months after its halving.

The halving occurs roughly once every four years. It’s where the amount of new bitcoin being created gets cut in half. It’s a programmed supply change. And the market price of Bitcoin ebbs and flows around it.

The last halving landed in April 2024, and the market top arrived in early October 2025, right on schedule.

But the price was off.

When we look at the models the industry leans on to frame Bitcoin’s potential, something went wrong.

The Power Law model is one such method. It’s a law that suggests a change in one area creates a change in a secondary area. These two areas are time and price for Bitcoin. And it was suggesting a price upward of $460,000 in 2025.

A secondary model is Stock-to-Flow. It helps us predict the price of Bitcoin based on the amount of new supply entering the market. The model anticipated the price rising above $360,000.