The 200-Week MA: Bitcoin's Decade-Long Bear Floor — Until It Broke

Quick answer: The 200-week moving average (~4-year average price) is Bitcoin's most famous long-term support — the 2015 and 2018 bear bottoms both stabilized right above it. In June 2022 it broke decisively for the first time in history, with price below for about half a year. That wasn't the indicator failing; it was an honest record of that deleveraging cascade (Luna/FTX). Even so, the final low sat only ~25% below the line before reclaiming it. The BTC Cycle Thermometer tracks the price ÷ 200W-MA multiple live: below 1x = historic opportunity band, above 4x = historic overheat band.

Why 200 weeks

200 weeks ≈ one full halving cycle, so the line approximates the average cost basis across an entire cycle. Price near it means the average participant of the past four years is at breakeven — long-holder sell pressure naturally exhausts there. That's chip-structure gravity, not chart mysticism, and it's the single most-cited Bitcoin valuation line in institutional research.

What the 2022 break taught us

The half-year below the line shattered "200W faith," but left two deeper lessons. One: any single support can fail in an extreme liquidity crisis — which is why the thermometer never bets on one indicator but cross-checks nine. Two: during the break, mining cost, extreme fear and deeply negative MACD all hit extremes together — the combined signal still pointed clearly to a bottom zone. Single lines break; ensembles don't go silent.

Using the multiple

It carries 10% weight in the thermometer, anchored from 0.8x (score 0) to 6x (score 100). It's the ideal slow-decision input: it moves on a monthly scale, better for calibrating DCA intensity than for timing. The live reading sits in the component list on the tool page.