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Bitcoin's on a streak it hasn't hit since 2012
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Bitcoin is on track for a rare three-month winning streak it has not achieved since 2012, with September trading 10.9% higher at $86,140 and putting the cryptocurrency in positive territory for a third straight month. The September gain follows a 4.8% rise in July and a 25.2% surge in August, according to data source CoinDesk. If the month closes in the green, it will mark the first July-to-September winning streak since 2012.
The only comparable episode dates back to 2012, when bitcoin rose 41.0%, 6.4% and 24.4% across those respective months. October then broke the streak, with prices falling 9.7% for the month before bottoming out at $10.17 on Oct. 26. From that low, bitcoin launched one of the largest rallies in its history, a 165-day run that carried price to $230 by April 2013, a gain of more than 2,000%, according to CoinDesk's analysis of daily price data.
Whether this cycle follows a similar path β a red October followed by a big bull run β cannot be settled by the precedent alone, since bitcoin has traded only since late 2010 and the pattern has surfaced just once. Analysts caution the sample size is too small to draw a meaningful conclusion about what happens next. Still, the setup is noteworthy because of its rarity and the outsized rally that followed the 2012 example.
Some four-year cycle models point to a potentially bullish phase beginning around October or November, though historical cycle patterns remain approximate rather than fixed calendar rules. The magnitude of any rally may also be smaller than in bitcoin's early years, when the asset was thinly traded and worth barely $10. Today bitcoin sits within a multi-trillion-dollar market featuring deep spot and derivatives liquidity across dozens of venues and a broad range of directional and relative-value strategies.
Vikram Subburaj, CEO of India-based exchange Giottus, said bitcoin now belongs to a global asset class with institutional ownership and that spot ETFs have created a regulated channel for investment. He argued the rally of more than 2,000% after 2012 cannot become a reasonable expectation for 2026, because the real change is one of market structure. The 2012 rise began in a market that could be transformed by a small pool of buyers, while today's case depends on whether large pools of capital continue allocating after the easiest gains have been made.
Institutions have returned to the crypto market, if U.S.-listed spot ETFs are a proxy: those funds pulled in over $5.5 billion in investor money since August, according to data source SoSoValue. Derivatives markets, Subburaj noted, have also changed how risk is transferred across the ecosystem. For him, the durability of those allocations matters more than their headline size.
Nicolai Sondergaard, senior research analyst at Nansen, said history does not repeat itself but often rhymes, citing bitcoin's continued adherence to the four-year cycle. He noted the cycle sometimes runs slightly late or slightly early, so seeing certain patterns play out again is unsurprising to a certain degree. Sondergaard added that a red October is not a guarantee, but some pullback would not be surprising after the run so far.
