How Does Current Bitcoin Rally Compare With Historical Ones?

Keshav Verma

Last Updated: June 11, 2024 8:10 am

3 mins read

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Here’s how the current Bitcoin rally stacks up against the previous ones in terms of the drawdowns it has experienced so far.

The Current Bitcoin Rally Has Seen A Peak Drawdown Of -18.6% So Far

In a recent tweet, the on-chain analytics firm Glassnode compared the latest Bitcoin rally with the ones seen throughout the entire history of the cryptocurrency.

Generally, rallies are compared using metrics like the percentage price uplifts recorded during them or the amount of time that they lasted (which may be measured in terms of the blocks produced, as is done when looking at cycles in terms of halvings). Here, however, Glassnode has taken a different approach that provides a new perspective on these rallies.

The comparison basis between the price surges here is the drawdowns that each of them experienced across their spans. Note that these drawdowns aren’t to be confused with the cyclical drawdowns that are used to measure how the price has declined since the bull run top.

The drawdowns in question are the obstacles that the cryptocurrency encountered while the rallies were still ongoing, and are hence, those that the coin eventually managed to overcome.

Here is a chart that shows the degree of drawdowns that each of the historical bull markets experienced, and also where the current rally stands in comparison to them:

Looks like the value of the metric hasn't been too high for the latest rally so far | Source: Glassnode on Twitter

The five bull rallies here are as follows: genesis to 2011 (the very first rally), 2011-2013, 2015-2017, 2018-2021 (the last rally), and 2022 cycle+ (the ongoing one).

The analytics firm here has taken the bottom of each of the bear markets as the start of the next bull rallies. This means that parts of the cycle that some may not consider as part of the proper bull run are also included.

The main example of this would be the April 2019 rally, which is often considered its own thing but is clubbed with the last Bitcoin bull market in the above chart.

From the graph, it’s visible that the deepest drawdown that occurred during the first bull market measured around -49.4%. The next run, the 2011 to 2013 bull, experienced an even larger obstacle of a -71.2% plunge midway through it.

The next one (2015-2017) then only saw a drawdown of -36%, but the drawdown was again up at -62.6% for the run that followed it (that is, the latest bull market).

So far in the 2022+ Bitcoin bull market (which would only be considered a bull market at all if the November 2022 low was truly the cyclical bottom), the deepest drawdown observed so far is the March 2023 plunge of -18.6%.

Clearly, the drawdown seen in the current rally so far is significantly lesser than what the historical bull markets face. If the pattern of the past runs holds any weight at all, then this would mean that the current bull market should still have more potential to grow.

BTC Price

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading around $26,900, down 2% in the last week.

BTC has been moving sideways recently | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView

Featured image from iStock.com, charts from TradingView.com, Glassnode.com

Keshav Verma

Keshav is currently a senior writer at NewsBTC and has been attached to the website since June 14, 2021.

Keshav has been writing for many years, first as a hobbyist and later as a freelancer. He has experience working in a variety of niches, even fiction at one point, but the cryptocurrency industry has been the longest he has been attached to.

In terms of official educational qualifications, Keshav holds a bachelor’s degree in Physics from one of the premier institutes of India, the University of Delhi (DU). He started the degree with an aim of eventually making a career in Physics, but the onset of COVID led to a shift in plans. The virus meant that the college classes had to be delivered in the online-mode and with it came free time for him to explore other passions.

Initially only seeking to make some beer money, Keshav unexpectedly landed clients offering real projects, after which there was no looking back. Writing was something he had always enjoyed and to be able to do it for a living was like a dream come true.

Keshav completed his Physics degree in 2022 and has been focusing on his writing career since, but that doesn’t mean his passion for Physics has ended. He eventually plans to re-enter university to obtain a masters degree in the same field, but perhaps only to satiate his own interest rather than for using it as a means to find employment..

Keshav has found blockchain and its concepts fascinating ever since he started going down the rabbit-hole back in 2020. On-chain analysis in particular has been something he likes to research more about, which is why his NewsBTC pieces tend to involve it in some form.

Being of the science background, Keshav likes if concepts are clear and consistent, so he generally explains the indicators he talks about in a bit of detail so that the readers can perhaps come out having understood and learnt something new.

As for hobbies, Keshav is super into football, anime, and videogames. He enjoys football not only as a watcher, but also as a player. For games, Keshav generally tends towards enjoying singleplayer adventures, with EA FC (formerly FIFA) being the only online game he is active in. Though, perhaps due to being ultra-focused on the game, he is today a semi-pro on the EA FC scene, regularly participating in tournaments and sometimes even taking back prize money.

Because of his enthusiasm for anime and games, he also self-learned Japanese along the way to consume some of the untranslated gems out there. The skill didn’t merely remain as just a hobby, either, as he put it to productive use during his exploration for small-time gigs at the start of COVID, fulfilling a couple of Japanese-to-English translation jobs.

Keshav is also big into fitness, with agility and acceleration-related workouts making a big part of his program due to the relevance they have in football. On top of that, he also has a more traditional strength based program for the gym, which he does to maintain an overall fitness level of his body.

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