Tested claim

Does the 2-year moving average mark the accumulation band?

Price below its 2-year moving average marks the accumulation band of the cycle.

Price and its 2-year average$0.03$258k201020182026Price2-year averagewhen it fired
Where we are now. Today price is $79,677 and the 2-year average is $87,956 — price sits 9% below it. Shaded bands are the 4 occasions the rule fired, the same ones counted in the table below: 2014-11, 2018-11, 2019-10, 2022-05.
No verdict

This rule has fired 4 times. A doubling followed within a year on 1 of the 4. On comparable days when it did not fire, a doubling followed 44.9% of the time.

PER CENT OF OCCASIONS FOLLOWED BY THE PREDICTED OUTCOMEWhen it fired25.0%When it did not44.9%4 occasions — too few for a verdict
Price below the 2-year average, scored against a transition-matched baseline
Times it fired4 separate occasions, not days
What followed25.0% a doubling within 365 days of that close
Happened anyway44.9% comparable days when the rule did not fire
Difference-19.9 pts near zero means the signal added nothing

Where the claim comes from

A cycle-framing tool usually shown with a multiplier band above it.

How we tested it

Trigger: close below the 2-year SMA. Scored as a bottom rule: doubling within 365 days.

Only days the rule could have fired are counted. Consecutive triggers within 90 days are one occasion. The baseline excludes each trigger and the 90 days after it, because the aftermath of a signal is not a fair comparison. No verdict is given below 20 occasions.

What the numbers say

Four occasions, 25.0% followed by a doubling against 45.0%. Negative, on four observations, so it says nothing.

What this does not mean

Our test uses the plain average, not the multiplier bands the rule is usually drawn with. That is a real limitation of this specification.

What would change the answer

Testing the band version, which is what most people actually use.

If you cannot time it, the question changes

Most of the claims in this registry cannot be shown to beat a coin flip, and several are worse than one. That is not an argument against holding bitcoin. It is an argument that the decision worth spending effort on is how much to hold, not when to buy.

We are building that second tool. Until it is here, the Where Things Stand page gives the valuation state and what has historically followed readings like today's, with the sample size attached.

Recomputed from the daily public snapshot by fetch/scorecard.py and published as scorecard.json. Method on the methods page; every claim in the scorecard.