Bitcoin just topped a key long-term moving average. Here's what it might mean

Bitcoin’s recent price surge has triggered a possible bullish signal for even larger gains.

That signal is the price topping its 365-day rolling simple moving average.

On Sept. 22, bitcoin rose above its 365-day average near $80,900 for the first time in 310 days, Ryan Horst and Joni Zhuleku, founders of Altcoin Pro, said in an email conversation.

Altcoin Pro found that bitcoin was higher 12 months later in each of the five previous instances in which it regained its 365-day average after spending at least 90 days below it. The gains ranged from about 59% to more than 1,400%, though the largest increase came in 2012, when bitcoin was a fringe asset.

Horst said the pattern is not fail-safe. When the firm included shorter periods below the line, it found two failed breakouts, in July 2018 and March 2022, when bitcoin fell about 27% and 59%, respectively, within 90 days.

“This September’s move is encouraging, especially after 310 days below the line, but we want to see it hold,” Horst said. “It is a signal, not a guarantee.”

The two remain bullish on bitcoin over the longer term. However, their view depends more on prices trading above the 200-day average than the 365-day average.

“The 365-day is still catching up to something the 200-day already told us in mid-August,” they said. The 200-day average had risen to about $70,800 in AltcoinPro’s calculations, with bitcoin roughly 19% above it before the modest dip of the past 36 hours. The 365-day average, by contrast, was still falling and sat much closer to the market price.

Moving averages are based on past prices, so they show how an asset has traded over a set period rather than where it will go next. A 365-day average responds more slowly to recent changes than a 200-day average.

“The 365-day average is telling you where bitcoin was six months ago,” Ryan and Joni Zhuleku said. “The 200-day reaction is roughly three months earlier. In a market that moves the way this one does, three months is the whole trade.”

Bitcoin’s 50-day average crossed above its 200-day average on Sept. 8, creating the so-called golden cross. This signal has a mixed record as a standalone predictor, with several past crosses failing to produce a sustained rally, CoinDesk’s Omkar Godbole wrote.