Indicator Tournament: how the Bitcoin cycle ranking works

Bitcoin has many cycle indicators, and they often disagree. The Indicator Tournament puts them in one competition so you can see which ones have actually lined up with the big turning points, instead of trusting an indicator because it is famous.

Each indicator is scored on the same test: how well it matched six past Bitcoin cycle pivots, the tops of 2013, 2017 and 2021 and the bottoms of 2015, 2018 and 2022. A few indicators with a shorter data history could only be tested on some of the six. The best performers move on, and the survivors are blended into one live score. A free, read-only version of the ranking is on our Indicator Scoreboard. The full interactive tool is for signed-in members.

It runs as a bracket. Round 1 scores all 31 indicators. Round 2 keeps 17 semifinalists. Indicators that say the same thing as a stronger sibling from the same family are then removed, which leaves 11 distinct finalists. A final step cuts that group down to the Top 5.

The de-duplication matters. Two measures can look different but carry nearly the same information. Dropping the weaker copy rewards indicators that add something new, not just another version of the same signal. The current Top 5 is RHODL Ratio, Log Regression Band, 2W RSI, AHR999 and MVRV Z-score. You can click an indicator in the tool to open the evidence behind its score, including how it did at each of the six pivots.

The buy score is a single number from 0 to 100. Each of the Top 5 has a current reading, shown as where today sits compared with that indicator's own history. The tool blends those readings, using a weight for each indicator, into the one number. In the tool you can change which indicators are in the pool and how they are weighted, and the score updates as you do.

The score is split into five zones: Deep Value (0 to 20), Accumulate (20 to 40), Fair Value (40 to 60), Late Cycle (60 to 80) and Distribution (80 to 100). A low score means most of the blended readings sit near the low end of their own history, where past cycle bottoms were found. A high score means the opposite. Treat the zone as a description of where the cycle looks to be, not as an instruction. The score is context, and it is only as good as the indicators behind it. For an indicator you can use without an account, see Risk Wave or the Bitcoin Cycle Chart.

The ranking itself is a fixed result. It is frozen when the tournament is run (the current release is from 5 June 2026) and is not recalculated every day. What does refresh is the set of current readings and the blended score. For Premium members the tool checks for new values about every 15 minutes while the page is open, and there is a refresh button.

If the live feed is unavailable, the tool says so and shows the latest verified snapshot with its date instead of leaving a blank. The test uses six pivots, which is a small sample. Read the accuracy numbers as a record of the past, not a promise. For background, see the glossary on backtesting and on the MVRV ratio, a measure in the pool.

Under the tournament, the tool has a second block called the rotation ladder. It asks a different question: which slice of the market looks cheap or expensive compared with its own past. It has eight reads: Ethereum, all alts, large alts and small alts against Bitcoin or Ethereum where relevant, plus small alts against large alts.

Each card shows a percentile against its own history and the direction of the last 26 weeks. The cards are colored cheap (green), neutral (amber) or expensive (red). Two of the cards use history back to 2017. The others start around 2020, so their readings are not directly comparable. This is market structure context, not a call on any single coin.

Keep these in mind before you lean on any reading.

A made-up example. An investor opens the tool and sees the buy score sitting low, in a zone the tool labels Deep Value or Accumulate. They open the Top 5 and notice that three of the five sit near the low end of their history and two are mid-range. That tells them the reading is not driven by a single indicator.

They might then check the same cycle against the free Risk Wave and see whether the picture matches. The score does not make the decision. It shows how many of the tested indicators currently point the same way.

Reading this page is free, and so is the Indicator Scoreboard. Inside the tool, free members see the top 2 finalists with their accuracy. Ranks 3 to 5 and the blended 0 to 100 buy score are locked for them, and the score-history chart shows the Bitcoin price only.

Premium unlocks the full ranking, the live buy score, the score line on the history chart and the share card. In the rotation ladder, free members see one of the eight reads and Premium sees all eight plus the one-line summary. See the pricing page for what is included today.