Bitcoin profitable days (AUD)
For every historical daily close in Bitcoin's AUD price history, was buying that day a profitable trade if you simply held to today? The headline figure is the percentage of all historical days where holding to today produced a positive return. The chart plots the full BTC AUD price line and colours each daily segment green (profitable to have bought that day) or red (unprofitable - that day's close is above today's price). Hover any day for the exact close and return-to-today.
Chart
Log-scale BTC AUD price from 2014 to today. Each daily segment is coloured green if buying that day was profitable (its close is below today's price) or red if it was not (its close was at or above today's price). The gold dashed line marks today's price. Red zones cluster around cycle peaks that today's price hasn't yet reclaimed. Hover any day for the exact close and return-to-today.
What "profitable days" actually measures
The metric answers a single question: if I had bought BTC at a random historical daily close and held to today, what's the probability I'm currently profitable?
Mathematically:
- For each historical daily close in BTC AUD history (~4,400 days from 2014 onwards)
- Check: is today's BTC AUD price higher than that day's close?
- Profitable days % = (count of profitable days / total days) × 100
The result is a single percentage that captures how forgiving Bitcoin's historical price action has been to long-term holders. It is NOT a cycle-position indicator - it backward-looks at every buyer in history rather than forward-looking at cycle phase. Pair it with Mayer Multiple, Risk Metric, or Pi Cycle Bottom for cycle context.
How to read the chart
The chart is the full BTC AUD price line on a log scale from 2014 onwards. The gold dashed horizontal line is today's price. Every daily segment is coloured:
- Green if that day's close was below the gold line. Buying that day and holding to today is currently profitable.
- Red if that day's close was at or above the gold line. Buying that day is currently underwater - you'd need BTC to climb past those prior peaks for these positions to break even.
Red zones cluster around historical cycle peaks: the December 2017 top, the April 2021 / November 2021 double-top, and the March 2024 ATH. The exact red-vs-green split is the headline percentage in the stats grid above.
Bitcoin's secular AUD trend has lifted the entire 2014-2018 price band well below any subsequent ATH, so the early years of the chart are solid green regardless of cycle phase. The most-recent peak window is almost always partly red because today's price sits close to the most recent cycle peak.
By cycle: 2014-2017, 2018-2020, 2021-2024
| Cycle window | Cycle peak | Typical profitable-day % at end of next cycle | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 - January 2017 | Dec 2017 (~A$25k) | ~100% | Every 2014-2017 day cleared by Bitcoin's 2020-2021 cycle peak; no days in this range are underwater today. |
| 2017 - December 2018 | Dec 2017 (~A$25k) | ~96% | The Dec 2017 peak band is the only meaningful underwater region from this cycle, and even that is now cleared by 2024 ATHs. |
| 2018 - December 2020 | Nov 2021 (~A$94k) | ~100% | 2020 was a top-quartile entry year overall; bottom-of-year prices around A$10k. |
| 2021 - November 2022 | Nov 2021 (~A$94k) | 50-90% | The Nov 2021 peak band is the deepest currently-underwater zone in modern Bitcoin history. |
| 2023 - present | March 2024 (~A$110k+) | varies live | Most recent year is partly underwater near cycle peaks; depends on today's BTC AUD price. |
The 2021-2022 entry window is the dominant source of currently-underwater days. Bitcoin's November 2021 ATH (~A$94,000) printed at a level that took 2-3 years for the AUD price to reclaim, leaving every late-2021 and early-2022 buyer underwater for the longest interval in Bitcoin's history. By contrast, the 2017 cycle peak (~A$25,000) was reclaimed by the 2020-2021 cycle and dwarfed by the 2024 cycle, so essentially no 2017 buyers remain underwater today.
Methodology
- Inclusion. Every daily close in the BTC AUD daily file from Bitcoin's earliest tracked AUD price (early 2014) through today.
- Profitability test. For each historical day d, day d is "profitable" if BTC_AUD_today > BTC_AUD_close(d).
- Headline metric. Profitable days / total days × 100. Single live figure recomputed on every page load.
- Chart colouring. Each daily segment is drawn in green if that day's close is below today's price, red if it is at or above. A second SVG path keeps the visual line unbroken across colour transitions.
- Data source. Daily BTC AUD closes via CryptoCompare primary + CoinGecko fallback. Static-first: if the upstream source is unreachable, the previous data file is preserved and the chart renders against the last-known-good dataset.
Related tools
- Bitcoin Drawdown From All-Time High (AUD) - how far below ATH BTC trades day by day.
- Bitcoin Yearly Highs and Lows (AUD) - per-year peak, trough, and return.
- Bitcoin Monthly Returns Heatmap (AUD) - month-by-month colour-coded returns.
- Bitcoin Mayer Multiple (AUD) - cycle position via price ÷ 200DMA.
- Bitcoin Risk Metric (AUD) - 0-1 cycle score.
- Charts Dashboard - all cycle indicators on one page.
Frequently asked questions
It is the percentage of historical days where buying BTC at that day's close and holding to today would be profitable. The metric counts each historical daily close and asks: is today's BTC AUD price higher than that day's close? If yes, that day is profitable. Across Bitcoin's full AUD price history, the figure typically sits in the 90-99 percent range during late-bull or all-time-high phases, and drops into the 60-85 percent range during deep bear markets. The headline percentage in the stats grid above the chart is the live figure for today's BTC AUD price.
Yes, but only briefly and only after Bitcoin has just printed a new all-time high. The figure mathematically reaches 100% on the exact day BTC closes at its highest-ever AUD price, because every prior day's close is by definition lower. The figure then immediately starts dropping as soon as BTC pulls back from that high, because the most recent days near the peak become 'underwater' if held to today. Realistically the metric spends most of its time in the 88-97% range, occasionally touching 100% at fresh ATHs and dropping into the 60s-70s at cycle bottoms.
Every day from Bitcoin's early history (2014-2018) is virtually 100% profitable to have bought - even the worst single day of 2018 is dramatically below today's BTC AUD price, so the chart line is solid green across that entire window. The recent years (2021-2024) have mixed profitability because BTC's all-time highs in those years sit close to today's price - those peak windows show as red segments on the chart. Red zones cluster around cycle peaks (Apr 2021, Nov 2021, March 2024). The exact red-vs-green split depends on where today's BTC AUD price sits relative to prior peaks.
The metric has hit lows around 65-75% during the deepest cycle-bottom phases: late January 2015 (Mt. Gox aftermath), December 2018-March 2019 (post-ICO bear), and November-December 2022 (FTX collapse). At those moments, roughly 25-35% of all prior daily closes were higher than the then-current price. The metric recovers quickly once BTC starts its next leg up; it usually crosses back above 90% within 12-18 months of a cycle bottom.
Rainbow Chart and Mayer Multiple are cycle-position indicators (where Bitcoin is in its cycle right now relative to a long-term trendline or moving average). Profitable days is a historical-buyer-experience metric: it tells you what fraction of all prior buyers are currently above water. The two answer different questions. Use Mayer Multiple or Risk Metric for cycle positioning; use profitable days as a 'has dollar-cost averaging worked?' or sentiment-anchor metric.
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