Bitcoin monthly returns heatmap (AUD)
Every month of Bitcoin's price history from 2014 onwards, expressed as percentage returns in AUD, colour-coded by magnitude. Australian-resident traders rarely see BTC returns in AUD: most heatmaps online are USD-only and miss the FX effect that matters for AU portfolios. Auto-updated on every site refresh.
Heatmap
Every month of Bitcoin's history from 2014 onwards, expressed as percentage returns in AUD. Green is positive, red is negative, intensity scales with magnitude. Last column shows the compounded annual return. Hover any cell for the exact open + close prices and return for that month.
Top 5 best months for Bitcoin in AUD
The five highest single-month returns in AUD-priced Bitcoin history (January 2014 to December 2025). All five fall inside the 2017 ICO-era mania cycle or the May 2019 rally that opened the 2020-2021 bull market - confirmation that Bitcoin's largest gains cluster around cycle inflection points rather than late-cycle euphoria.
| Rank | Month | Return (AUD) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | May 2017 | +70.4% |
| 2 | August 2017 | +65.5% |
| 3 | May 2019 | +60.7% |
| 4 | November 2017 | +57.6% |
| 5 | October 2017 | +49.1% |
Top 5 worst months for Bitcoin in AUD
The five largest single-month losses in AUD-priced Bitcoin history. Three of the five fall inside the 2022 bear market (catalysed by the Luna/Terra collapse and the Three Arrows Capital/Celsius/FTX credit cascade). The 2018 post-mania crash and the 2014 Mt. Gox collapse round out the list.
| Rank | Month | Return (AUD) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | June 2022 | -37.1% |
| 2 | November 2018 | -36.1% |
| 3 | May 2021 | -35.4% |
| 4 | March 2018 | -33.4% |
| 5 | February 2014 | -30.9% |
Calendar-month seasonality: average Bitcoin return per month (AUD)
The table below shows the average return Bitcoin has produced in each calendar month across the 2014 to 2025 sample, ranked from strongest to weakest. The "Positive rate" column shows the percentage of years that month closed green. Seven of the twelve calendar months have positive average returns; five (March, August, September, plus the marginal December and January) hover around zero or below.
| Rank | Month | Avg return | Median return | Positive rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | October | +17.6% | +12.8% | 83% |
| 2 | May | +11.6% | +9.8% | 58% |
| 3 | November | +9.2% | +7.3% | 67% |
| 4 | April | +8.9% | +5.5% | 58% |
| 5 | February | +8.8% | +11.2% | 75% |
| 6 | July | +7.6% | +8.3% | 67% |
| 7 | December | +7.6% | -0.3% | 50% |
| 8 | January | +2.4% | -0.9% | 45% |
| 9 | June | +1.9% | +2.7% | 58% |
| 10 | March | -1.0% | -3.0% | 42% |
| 11 | August | -1.3% | -8.4% | 25% |
| 12 | September | -3.4% | -4.2% | 42% |
Is October the best month for Bitcoin? ("Uptober")
Yes. The "Uptober" pattern is supported by the data. October has produced a positive return in 10 of 12 years (83 percent) across the AUD-priced Bitcoin sample, the highest positive rate of any calendar month. October's average return is +17.6 percent and its median is +12.8 percent, both also the highest of any month. Notable October performances:
- October 2017: +49.1% (ICO-era mania entering its peak month)
- October 2020: +27.8% (post-halving institutional adoption rally)
- October 2021: +34.7% (lead-up to the November 2021 cycle top)
- October 2024: +16.6% (pre-US-election rally)
Caveat: the Uptober pattern reflects historical clustering of cycle-related catalysts in Q4 (halving cycles tend to mature into late-year mania), not a calendar effect per se. The pattern is most reliable when Bitcoin is in a confirmed bull phase. October 2014 (-11.7%) and October 2018 (-4.5%) are the two negative Octobers in the sample - both fell inside extended bear markets.
Is September the worst month for Bitcoin?
Yes, in average-return terms. September has averaged -3.4 percent across the AUD-priced sample, the weakest of any calendar month. Only 42 percent of Septembers have closed positive. The pattern is strong enough that September has its own market nickname: Bitcoin's "bad month."
Possible reasons cited by analysts: end-of-summer liquidity returning to risk-off positioning, the calendar gap between mid-year corporate earnings and Q4 catalysts, tax-loss harvesting in markets like the US (their tax year ends in October), and the historical tendency for crypto venture funds to mark-to-market quarterly with Q3 ending September 30.
August is the second-weakest month (-1.3 percent average) and has the worst positive-month rate of any month (25 percent positive). The two weakest months back-to-back form a meaningful late-summer drawdown window that has held across multiple cycles.
How to read the heatmap
Each row is a year. Each column is a calendar month (January on the left, December on the right). The rightmost column is the compounded annual return for that year. The cell colour indicates the direction and magnitude of the return:
- Bright green: strong positive return (above ~25 percent).
- Light green: modest positive return (up to ~25 percent).
- Light red: modest negative return (down to ~25 percent).
- Bright red: strong negative return (worse than ~25 percent).
The colour scale saturates at plus or minus 50 percent. Months with returns above that level (rare but they happen) all show the deepest green or red.
The heatmap is a long-form pattern-recognition tool. Use it to:
- Spot cycle patterns: the dense-green stripes correspond to bull cycles (2017, 2020-2021, 2023-2024) and the dense-red stripes correspond to bear cycles (2014, 2018, 2022).
- Compare monthly seasonality: Q4 (October-December) often shows green clusters in Bitcoin's history.
- Calibrate expectations: the visual makes it easy to see how often Bitcoin actually has down months. Roughly 40-45 percent of months are negative.
- Compare cycle severity: 2018's drawdown shows as months of bright red, 2022's as similar magnitude. The visual scale is consistent across cycles.
Why AUD-native matters
Most Bitcoin returns heatmaps online (Bitbo, MarketCycles, NewHedge) are USD-native. For Australian-resident investors this is the wrong reference currency. Bitcoin is priced in USD globally, but your portfolio value is measured in AUD. The AUD/USD exchange rate moves independently of Bitcoin's price, which means the AUD return on Bitcoin equals the USD return plus the AUD's depreciation (or minus its appreciation) over the period.
Concrete example: in calendar year 2022, Bitcoin/USD fell 64 percent. AUD/USD also fell roughly 7 percent over the same period (the USD strengthened). So Bitcoin/AUD fell roughly 64 percent minus 7 percent, equal to 57 percent. Australian-resident holders lost less in AUD terms than the headline USD number implies.
The reverse happens in years when AUD strengthens. In 2020, the AUD recovered from its COVID crash lows, gaining about 10 percent against USD. Bitcoin/USD rose 305 percent that year. Bitcoin/AUD rose about 295 percent. Australian-resident holders captured slightly less of the upside.
Over 10 years the cumulative FX effect can be 20-30 percentage points difference between USD and AUD returns. The heatmap above bakes this in automatically because the underlying data is AUD-priced directly via the source's vs_currency parameter.
What the heatmap shows
Several patterns repeat across Bitcoin's history. None of them are deterministic; they are statistical tendencies subject to small-sample bias.
Cycle alternation. Bull and bear cycles are clearly visible as alternating green and red years. The four-year halving cycle that crypto analysts reference shows as a rough pattern: bull market in the year of the halving and the year after, mean reversion in year three, bear or accumulation in year four. The pattern is loose; the 2024-2025 cycle has been less clean than the 2017 cycle.
Q4 strength. October through December has been Bitcoin's strongest seasonal window. Across the multi-year sample on the heatmap, Q4 monthly returns average roughly 10-15 percent positive, versus 2-5 percent positive in the other three quarters. The pattern is consistent enough to be widely noted but weak enough that any single Q4 can break the pattern (Q4 2018 and Q4 2022 were both negative).
January weakness post-Q4 rally. After strong Q4s, January often shows mean reversion. The pattern is weak but visible in the heatmap.
Bull market acceleration. The biggest single months (the brightest green cells) almost all occur in the second year of a bull cycle, not the first. The pattern is: bull market starts with steady accumulation, then accelerates into vertical price action in year two. The 2017 cycle showed this with November and December 2017 producing 40 percent and 50 percent months. The 2020-2021 cycle showed it with February 2021 producing 35-40 percent.
Data and methodology
The underlying data comes from a public market-data endpoint with vs_currency=aud. The fetch script scripts/fetch-btc-aud-history.mjs runs as part of every site build, downloads daily price data, downsamples to monthly closes (last data point of each calendar month is the month close), and writes a static JSON file consumed by the browser-side heatmap renderer.
If the upstream source is unreachable during a build (network outage, rate limit, transient error), the previous static data file is preserved unchanged. The heatmap continues to render with the last-known-good data. The "data through" line under the heatmap tells you the exact data window.
The monthly return for month N is computed as: (close_N - close_N-1) / close_N-1 * 100. The first month in the series has no return (no prior month to compare against). The compounded annual return shown in the rightmost column is computed by multiplying the monthly growth factors: (1 + r_Jan/100) × (1 + r_Feb/100) × ... × (1 + r_Dec/100) - 1.
Pre-2014 Bitcoin pricing data exists but is sparse and exchange-divergent due to thin liquidity. The heatmap starts from January 2014 to ensure data quality.
Related tools
- Crypto CGT Calculator - applies the ATO 50 percent discount to a specific Bitcoin disposal. Use to compute after-tax returns on any month's gain.
- Tax-Loss Harvesting Calculator - estimate tax savings from realising losses before 30 June 2026 to offset gains.
- SMSF Crypto CGT Calculator - the SMSF equivalent of the standard CGT calculator with one-third discount and fund-tax rates.
- Best Crypto Exchanges Australia 2026 - AUSTRAC-registered exchanges where Australian investors can buy and hold the Bitcoin shown on this heatmap.
Frequently asked questions
Across 143 months of AUD-priced Bitcoin history (2014 to 2025), October has been the strongest calendar month with a 17.6 percent average return and a positive close in 83 percent of years. May follows at 11.6 percent average, then November at 9.2 percent and April at 8.9 percent. The single best month on record is May 2017 (plus 70.4 percent in AUD), driven by the 2017 ICO-era mania rally. The Q4 strength pattern (October, November, December) is the most reliable seasonal signal in Bitcoin's monthly history.
September is Bitcoin's weakest calendar month historically. Across the AUD-priced data, September averages a 3.4 percent loss with only 42 percent of years closing positive. August is the second-weakest at 1.3 percent loss with the worst positive-month rate of any month (25 percent positive). The single worst month on record is June 2022 (minus 37.1 percent in AUD), driven by the Luna and Three Arrows Capital cascade. The September weakness pattern is consistent enough that it has its own market nickname: Bitcoin's 'bad month'.
Yes. The Uptober pattern is real. In AUD-priced Bitcoin data from 2014 to 2025, October has produced a positive return in 10 of 12 years (83 percent positive rate, the highest of any calendar month). October's average return is 17.6 percent and its median is 12.8 percent, both also the highest of any month. The pattern is consistent across cycles: October 2017 (plus 49.1 percent), October 2020 (plus 27.8 percent), and October 2024 (plus 16.6 percent) all delivered double-digit AUD gains. Past performance does not guarantee future results, but the historical edge is meaningful.
Bitcoin cycle peaks have historically clustered in October to December of the third year after a halving. The 2017 cycle topped in December 2017. The 2021 cycle topped in November 2021. The current cycle (post April 2024 halving) is on a similar trajectory, with cycle-position indicators like the Bitcoin Risk Metric and Pi Cycle Top Indicator pointing to late 2025 through mid 2026 as the high-probability peak window. However, cycle timing has lengthened with each cycle, so the peak could extend later than historical analogues suggest.
A Bitcoin monthly returns heatmap is a grid visualisation showing Bitcoin's price-change percentage for every month over a multi-year period, with cells colour-coded by magnitude (green for positive returns, red for negative). It is the standard way long-term Bitcoin investors evaluate seasonality, cycle patterns, and the asset's overall volatility profile. The SatoshiMacro heatmap differs from most online heatmaps because it expresses returns in AUD rather than USD, which is the right reference currency for Australian-resident investors.
Across 143 months of AUD-priced Bitcoin history (2014 to 2025), 80 months (55.9 percent) have closed positive. The average monthly return is plus 5.85 percent. This positive-bias is the mathematical foundation of Bitcoin's long-run uptrend, but it masks the magnitude asymmetry: the biggest positive months have been larger than the biggest negative months (best plus 70.4 percent vs worst minus 37.1 percent), which compounds Bitcoin's CAGR upward even though the win rate is only modestly above 50 percent.
Bitcoin is priced in USD on most global exchanges, but Australian-resident holders measure portfolio value in AUD. The AUD-USD exchange rate moves independently of Bitcoin's price, so the AUD return on Bitcoin equals the USD return plus the AUD weakening (or minus the AUD strengthening). In years where AUD has weakened against USD, AUD-native Bitcoin returns are higher than USD returns. In years where AUD has strengthened, AUD returns lag USD returns. The cumulative difference over 10 years can be 20-30 percentage points.
The static data file refreshes on every production build (every push to main, typically multiple times per week). The fetch script hits the upstream data endpoint and downsamples daily prices to monthly closes. If the upstream source is unreachable during a build, the previous data file is preserved unchanged so the heatmap continues to render with the last-known-good data. The 'data through' line directly under the heatmap tells you the exact data window.
The heatmap itself shows raw price returns, not CGT-adjusted returns, because CGT applies at the disposal level rather than the monthly mark-to-market level. For after-tax returns on a specific disposal, use the Crypto CGT Calculator on SatoshiMacro which applies the ATO 50 percent CGT discount when the holding period qualifies. For EOFY tax-loss harvesting strategy, use the dedicated calculator that nets losses against gains and applies discount ordering correctly.
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