Sydney Median House Price in Bitcoin
How many Bitcoin does it cost to buy the median Sydney dwelling? In Q1 2014 it took about 1,323 BTC. At the BTC price on 8 October 2026 it takes about 11.5 BTC, a 99.1 percent decline and the cleanest single read on Bitcoin's purchasing-power gain versus Australian residential property. CoreLogic quarterly medians divided by the real BTC AUD price at each quarter-end, refreshed automatically.
Chart
Sydney median dwelling price (CoreLogic Home Value Index) divided by BTC AUD spot at each quarter-end. Logarithmic Y-axis. Quarterly from Q1 2014, plus a provisional latest point at today's BTC price.
What the chart shows
The ratio (Sydney median dwelling AUD) / (BTC AUD close at quarter-end), quarterly from Q1 2014 to Q2 2026, plus a provisional point at today's BTC price. The Y-axis is logarithmic so the multi-cycle movement is visible across the full sample. Falling line = BTC outperforms Sydney property; rising line = Sydney property outperforms BTC.
Three phases stand out. (1) 2014-2017: the ratio fell from about 1,323 to about 51.1 BTC as BTC AUD rose from about $491 to about $17,809. (2) 2018-2020: it ranged between about 23.7 to 158 BTC through the 2018-2019 bear market and the 2020 COVID shock. (3) 2021 onward: it fell again, to about 17.9 BTC at Q4 2021 and 7.86 BTC at Q4 2024, then rose as BTC corrected from its late-2025 high (quarter-end peak about $172,444), reaching about 16.1 BTC in Q2 2026.
The denomination thesis
| Date | Sydney median (AUD) | BTC AUD close | Sydney median in BTC |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q1 2014 | $650,000 | $491 | 1,323 BTC |
| Q4 2017 | $910,000 | $17,809 | 51.1 BTC |
| Q4 2018 | $830,000 | $5,242 | 158 BTC |
| Q2 2020 | $855,000 | $13,290 | 64.3 BTC |
| Q4 2021 | $1,140,000 | $63,744 | 17.9 BTC |
| Q1 2023 | $1,050,000 | $42,394 | 24.8 BTC |
| Q4 2024 | $1,190,000 | $151,470 | 7.86 BTC |
| Q2 2026* | $1,366,000 | $84,675 | 16.1 BTC |
* Estimate: the last CoreLogic median extended by ABS mean dwelling price growth for New South Wales.
Why Australian investors care
- The debasement reframe. Sydney property looks like a sustained wealth-preservation asset in AUD terms (2.10x from Q1 2014 to Q2 2026). In BTC terms it lost 99.1 percent of its purchasing power. The AUD return is real and matters for affordability and household cash flow; the BTC return is real and matters for wealth preservation against the global monetary alternative.
- Both denominations matter. A retiree needing AUD income to fund living costs cares about AUD-denominated returns. A multi-decade wealth allocator with no near-term spending needs cares about hardest-money-denominated returns. AU-resident investors typically have both objectives and benefit from tracking both denominations.
- Allocation framing. If you hold AUD 2 million of property and AUD 100K of BTC, your portfolio is 95 percent property. At today's BTC price ($118,282) that is about 16.9 BTC of property and 0.85 BTC of pure BTC. Whether that matters depends on your time horizon and where you think AUD-versus-BTC debasement trends.
- Multi-cycle pattern. The ratio has fallen 99.1 percent since Q1 2014, but the path was choppy: a steep fall in the 2014-2017 cycle, a sideways range of about 23.7 to 158 BTC in 2018-2020, another fall into 2024, and a rebound as BTC corrected from late 2025. Long-horizon holders saw the decline reliably; short-horizon traders saw multi-quarter stretches where Sydney outperformed BTC (notably 2018 to 2020, 2022, and late 2025 into 2026).
Methodology
- Sydney property source. CoreLogic Home Value Index dwelling-price median for Sydney, quarterly from Q1 2014 to Q1 2026. Later quarters are extended by the quarterly growth in the ABS mean dwelling price for New South Wales (free ABS data API) and marked as estimates. Values rounded to the nearest thousand.
- BTC AUD source. The real BTC AUD close on each quarter-end date from the SatoshiMacro BTC AUD daily dataset (Bitstamp BTC/USD converted at the daily AUDUSD rate, with Kraken's native BTC/AUD for recent years). The latest point divides the most recent quarterly value by today's close.
- Ratio calculation. Sydney median AUD divided by BTC AUD close for each quarter-end. Output rounded to 0.0001 BTC.
- Refresh and fallback. The BTC side refreshes twice a day (07:30 and 13:30 Sydney) and the site rebuilds when the data changes. The last good snapshot in assets/data/wave7.json keeps the chart rendering if any upstream is unreachable.
Related tools
- Melbourne median house price in BTC - the southern-capital comparator.
- Australia national median dwelling in BTC - the combined-capital-cities aggregate.
- ASX 200 priced in BTC - the equity-index counterpart.
- Gold ounces per BTC - the precious-metals counterpart.
- Bitcoin log regression (AUD) - the BTC-AUD fair-value reference.
Frequently asked questions
The Sydney median dwelling price (AUD) divided by the BTC AUD price at each quarter-end: the number of Bitcoin needed to buy a median Sydney dwelling. In Q1 2014 (BTC AUD about $491) it was about 1,323 BTC. By Q4 2017 (BTC AUD about $17,809) it had fallen to about 51.1 BTC. In Q2 2026 it was about 16.1 BTC, and at today's BTC price it is about 11.5 BTC.
Because AUD loses purchasing power over time. The Sydney median rose from about $650K in Q1 2014 to about $1.37M in Q2 2026, a 2.10x AUD gain that looks like sustained wealth creation. In BTC terms it fell from about 1,323 BTC to about 11.5 BTC, a 99.1 percent decline. The dual view tells the asymmetric story: Sydney property appreciated in AUD partly because AUD was being debased; measured against the scarcest liquid asset, it lost purchasing power. AU-resident investors holding both BTC and property should track both denominations.
Partially, yes. But the framing matters. AUD-denominated property charts let Australian residential property look like an inflation-beating wealth-preservation asset. BTC-denominated charts show how much of that apparent gain was AUD weakness rather than real wealth accumulation against the hardest-supply asset available. The same exercise applied to gold, the ASX 200 or the USD points the same direction: BTC has compounded faster than every conventional Australian asset class since 2014, with large drawdowns along the way.
It depends on whether Bitcoin keeps outpacing AUD-denominated assets. The decline since 2014 reflects a roughly 241x rise in the BTC AUD price while Sydney property rose about 2.10x in AUD. The path is not one-way: the ratio rises whenever BTC falls faster than property, as in 2018 and again from late 2025. The structural argument is that Bitcoin has algorithmic supply discipline and Australian residential property does not. If that asymmetry persists, the long-run ratio probably keeps declining; if BTC matures and the supply premium compresses, it stabilises.
Sydney rental yields net of strata, council, maintenance, agent fees and vacancy have typically run at about 1.5-2.5 percent. Bitcoin generates no yield directly. Layering yield onto the chart pulls the BTC-denominated property line up modestly each year, which is small relative to the fall from about 1,323 BTC to about 11.5 BTC over the full sample. The yield-adjusted comparison still shows Bitcoin well ahead since 2014.
CoreLogic Home Value Index quarterly median anchors for Sydney from Q1 2014 to Q1 2026, extended each later quarter by the growth in the ABS mean dwelling price for New South Wales (free ABS data API) and marked as estimates. Each quarter is divided by the real BTC AUD close on the quarter-end date from the SatoshiMacro BTC AUD daily dataset (Bitstamp BTC/USD converted at the daily AUDUSD rate, with Kraken's native BTC/AUD for recent years). The latest point divides the most recent quarterly value by today's BTC price. The data refreshes automatically twice a day.
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