cryptowatch.id · methodology · updated 2026-10-17

How CryptoWatch reads Bitcoin.

Every label, score and plan on CryptoWatch, explained in plain words: what it measures, how to read it, and when not to trust it. Research, not advice.

01What CryptoWatch is and is not

Short answerCryptoWatch reads Bitcoin’s on-chain, fund-flow, cycle and macro data once a day and turns it into one posture, with the evidence behind it and what would change it. It does not place trades, size positions or predict prices.

Home: Today’s posture in one sentence, with short previews.
Bitcoin State: The full read and today’s plan.
Bitcoin Dashboard: The evidence in five views: Now, Cycle, Money, Macro, Action.
AI agents: The same read for software, through the API and hosted MCP.

The Dashboard has five views, each led by one main panel, with the Composite Score beside it on Now. The rest of each view is evidence for that panel. Each section below ends with cards for its panels.

It is rule-based, dated and fail-closed: a missing or stale input reads Unavailable, never a guess. It is not a signal service, investment advice or a price forecast, and Action copy never becomes an order.

02Reading Home and State

Short answerHome and Bitcoin State show the same daily read at two depths. The read describes the last completed day, so its date is usually yesterday.

Dates and freshness

Regime day: The UTC day of the cost-basis data behind the read. A day is complete only after midnight UTC, so the newest regime day is usually yesterday. State writes Last completed regime day; Home writes “As of”.
Updated: When the page’s data was rebuilt. It is not the date of the evidence.
Inputs refreshed: How many inputs passed their freshness check (28 hours for daily data, 10 minutes for live feeds). It shows the pipeline ran. It does not date the reading inside.
With dated observations: How many inputs also record the day their reading describes. If any input is late, the posture falls back to Wait and State lists it.

Coverage, recovery and prices

Coverage: full: The four reads the posture needs (cost-basis regime, cycle phase, top risk, bottom evidence) are present and agree. Coverage: partial names the one that is not.
Not yet calibrated: The read is a rule match; no probability is attached.
Recovery checks n / 6: How many of six recovery conditions are true now: a progress count, not a probability and not a buy timer. See Bottoming process.
Prices: LIVE is a quote polled about every 30 seconds. The chart uses finished UTC daily closes. The cost ladder uses the regime-day close, so small gaps between prices are expected.
ETF flow, 7 and 30 days: US spot-fund net flow over calendar days ending on the last reported session. Weekends add nothing and are not estimated.

What changed

State reports a change only after a new state holds for two daily reads in a row; one-day blips are dropped. Ranked metric moves are the Dashboard’s Since Yesterday.

Miner stress and where capital leads

Two context rows on State: miner revenue against its yearly average, and Bitcoin’s 30-day return against traditional assets. Neither changes the posture.

Open Bitcoin State →

03The posture and today’s plan

Short answerThe posture is a research label set by fixed rules. It is not an order and it does not set a position size. Today’s plan splits one buying budget into three parts; the posture decides which are eligible.

Posture words

Hold: The rules for adding and for reducing are not met.
Wait: No direction is supported: an input is late, two reads conflict, or no rule is met.
Staged accumulation: Bottom evidence is present and buying is permitted. The final low is unconfirmed.
Aggressive accumulation conditions: Recovery is confirmed, buyer groups agree and buying is permitted.
Staged distribution: Top risk is on watch, or the phase is late bull or Distribution, and trimming is permitted.
Aggressive distribution conditions: Top risk is active, holder groups agree on reducing and trimming is permitted.

Both accumulation postures also need nothing that weakens the read to be triggered. Both accumulation postures and aggressive distribution need complete supporting reads and a recognized macro mode.

Today’s plan: the planned buying budget

Weekly participation, 20%: Eligible under either accumulation posture.
Valuation zone, 50%: Eligible under aggressive accumulation, or staged accumulation while price is inside a realized-price zone.
Confirmed recovery, 30%: Eligible only after cost-basis recovery is confirmed.

Each part reads Wait or Eligible; under Hold, Wait or distribution every part reads Wait. When distribution evidence permits, a planned de-risk budget can show the same 20% / 50% / 30% split, labeled PLANNED, WAIT or ELIGIBLE. Nothing executes.

When the reads disagree

Process reads outrank calendar day-counts, live readings outrank analogs, and missing data fails closed. A positive score and a late-bear calendar can coexist with Hold: the posture owns permission.

Open today’s plan →

04Cycle: phase, clocks, recovery

Short answerThe phase says where the market sits today. The clocks are history, not a forecast. Recovery checks count how many of six fixed conditions are true now. None of them dates a bottom.

The four phases

Bottoming
Accumulation
Mid Bull
Distribution

A category, not a probability or a time forecast; the percentage beside it is its share of the vote.

How the phase and clocks are worked out

The cycle engine names its phases Capitulation, Accumulation, Markup and Distribution; CryptoWatch shows Capitulation as Bottoming and Markup as Mid Bull, as Bitcoin State does. Valuation, holder behavior, drawdown, momentum and the halving calendar (one vote) add points to a phase, and the most points wins. Overheated means MVRV Z-Score 3.0 or NUPL 0.55, levels this cycle has actually reached. The current phase holds unless another leads by two points or more, and the long-term-holder SOPR input is a seven-day mean, so one day cannot flip it.

Last halving: 20 Apr 2024, block 840,000; the next is block 1,050,000. Past tops fell 480–560 days after a halving and past lows 900–1,100 days after (HIST. BOTTOM). October 2025 is a local high in an unfinished cycle, not a confirmed top.

Two clocks

Bitcoin State sets the price read beside three clocks: days since the cycle high, since the 2022 low, and since the halving, each against where past lows fell. When price and calendar disagree, the tile says so and counts the days left in the low window. History, not a forecast.

Drawdown and where supply was bought

Distance from the high: How far the last close sits below the cycle high, the days since, and the deepest close since. A count of days without a lower close runs toward 180; reaching it does not confirm the final low.
Where supply was bought: Up to seven price ranges where coins last moved, with their share of supply, a divider at today’s price and the nearest air gap. Where holders’ costs sit, not support levels or targets.

Bottoming process: six recovery checks

PASS vs OPEN

PASS · true now
OPEN · still waiting

LTH stress cools: Long-term-holder stress is cooling.
ETF dual-gate: Fund flow stabilizes and is not muted: 30-day mean activity at least half the busiest 30-day mean of 180 days.
Reclaim STH cost basis: Price is above recent buyers’ average cost.
Reclaim True Market Mean: Price is above active investors’ average cost.
Spot follow-through: Spot demand, not just derivatives, drives the bounce.
Options dual-read: Options positioning and crash protection agree.

You do not need 6/6

Recovery needs price above the True Market Mean, four or more checks including the recent-buyer reclaim, a prior fall of 20% or more from the dated local high, and no break condition firing. In the one closed episode since spot funds launched, three of six was followed by a further 31% fall, so the bar is four. Even 6/6 is not a guaranteed low.

What would break it (ACTIVE / CLEAR)

LTH stress re-accelerates: The long-term-holder loss gauge turns back up.
Loss of Realized Price: Fourteen or more consecutive closes below Realized Price while long-term-holder stress rises. One close below it does not fire. It is not a guaranteed floor.
ETF hard bleed resumes: Spot funds return to sustained outflows.
Crash premium re-bids: Demand for options protection spikes again.

Distribution phase first

Top risk is a process (NONE → EARLY → ACTIVE → EXHAUSTION → POST_TOP_CONFIRMATION) shown on CW Risk; a terminal top is an event, never merged into one score. Top percentages stay unavailable until their gates pass, which does not mean no risk.

Panels on this view

Cycle PositionCycle · main panel

Shows: A four-stage gauge for the categorical phase: Bottoming → Accumulation → Mid Bull → Distribution.
Changes when: The fresh phase moves to another stage under the vote rules.
Don’t trust it when: The daily cycle read is stale or missing. The phase is not a probability or time forecast.

Bottoming processOn Cycle Position

Shows: The process state, proximity, the six checks and the four break conditions.
Changes when: A check flips, recovery qualifies, or a break condition fires.
Don’t trust it when: It is unavailable, a break condition is ACTIVE, or 6/6 is read as a guaranteed low.

CW RiskOn Cycle Position

Shows: Cycle temperature from 0 (deep value) to 1 (euphoric), and the top-proximity read.
Changes when: It closes in a new band five days running. Until then the band holds and reads, for example, “LOW pending 2/5”; Action follows the held band.
Don’t trust it when: It is used alone as a top or bottom timer.

CointimeOn Cycle Position

Shows: AVIV and liveliness: valuation weighted by active versus dormant supply.
Changes when: AVIV crosses 0.75 or 1.50 and liveliness agrees.
Don’t trust it when: Its inputs are missing or stale.

Cycle suite: time, trend and valuation readsOn Cycle Position

Shows: Seven complementary cycle reads covering time, long-run trend distance, realized valuation, miner economics, correction shape, cycle-relative return, and DCA seasonality.
Changes when: Four or more live reads point the same way.
Don’t trust it when: Fewer than four reads are live. The power-law read is descriptive and uncalibrated; it is not intrinsic fair value or a price target.

Hot CapitalOn Cycle Position

Shows: The share of value and supply in coins younger than three months. High means new speculative money.
Changes when: The young-supply share crosses 13%, 16%, 20% or 24% for two prints.
Don’t trust it when: The age data is older than seven days.

Open Cycle →

05Money: who is buying, where coins sit

Short answerMoney shows who is adding or selling Bitcoin (long-term holders, US spot funds, companies) and where the coins sit. When the buyers agree, conviction is highest. “Split” means CryptoWatch will not force one story.

Long-term holders: Net position change, SOPR and MVRV for coins held about 155 days or more. Transfers to exchanges show intent, not a sale.
Aligned · Split · Recovering: Holders, funds and companies agree; they disagree; or 7-day fund flow improved while the 30-day total is still negative.
Capital pipeline: Deployable liquidity: a proxy for money that could reach Bitcoin, not committed buying. Hong Kong spot-fund flow, when present, is part of it.

Where the coins sit

Funds hold: Bitcoin held by the funds in the tracked treasury list (not every fund), their share of supply, the largest fund, and 30-day and 7-day US spot-fund flow.
On exchanges: Bitcoin on exchanges, its share of supply and a 90-day line. The 30-day chip is rose when the balance rises, aqua when it falls.

Panels on this view

Liquidity & CapitalMoney · main panel

Shows: Fund flows, the liquidity pipeline, stablecoin flows, holder absorption, and Where the coins sit.
Changes when: These parts line up, or clearly diverge.
Don’t trust it when: Feeds are empty, stale, or cover different windows.

Holder supply & selling pressureInside Money

Shows: Long-term-holder supply, 7-day and 30-day fund flow, and companies over the same windows.
Changes when: A major group changes stance.
Don’t trust it when: Coverage is missing, or transfers are read as confirmed selling.

LTH → ExchangeOn holder supply

Shows: Long-term-holder coins sent to exchanges, split into profit and loss.
Changes when: Loss transfers pass 60% while the total rises, or profit transfers accelerate.
Don’t trust it when: The split is unavailable.

Supply DynamicsOn holder supply

Shows: Illiquid and long-held supply: how much float is not trading.
Changes when: The trend reverses for two readings.
Don’t trust it when: The series is older than seven days.

Corporate TreasuriesOn Liquidity

Shows: Company, miner, fund and government holdings, concentration and 30-day change.
Changes when: The 30-day change flips, or concentration passes 50%.
Don’t trust it when: The list is older than seven days.

Open Money →

06Macro

Short answerMacro asks whether the backdrop helps or hurts a bullish Bitcoin read. Growing money and easier conditions let bullish evidence count; a rising dollar, higher real yields or credit stress can keep even a cheap on-chain setup from paying.

Panels on this view

Macro PermissionMacro · main panel

Shows: US money growth, the dollar, real yields, central-bank liquidity, the yield curve, credit spreads, and Bitcoin’s link to risk assets.
Changes when: One of them crosses a declared regime line.
Don’t trust it when: Monthly and daily inputs are compared without respecting their dates.

Market CompassOn Macro Permission

Shows: Six lenses as one shape: broad means strong conditions, lopsided means conflict.
Changes when: The balance moves between risk-off, transition and risk-on.
Don’t trust it when: Too few lenses are live.

Tail-RiskOn Macro Permission

Shows: Structural risks such as fee security and custody or mining-pool concentration. Thesis risks, not daily signals.
Changes when: A metric rises above its watch line.
Don’t trust it when: A timestamp is missing or fewer than three cards return.

Capital RotationOn Macro Permission

Shows: Bitcoin’s 30-day and 90-day return against chips, the Nasdaq, gold and other risk assets.
Changes when: Bitcoin leads or lags over both windows.
Don’t trust it when: Fewer than three comparisons are live.

Open Macro →

07Action: setup and timing

Short answerAction turns the posture into a research plan: regime, allowed posture, what would invalidate it, then planning levels. Nothing here places or tracks an order.

How far could it fall?

CryptoWatch does not forecast a floor. It shows where holders’ costs sit (Realized Price, long-term-holder cost, recent-buyer cost, True Market Mean); planning zones below them describe past stress, not a promised rebound. Structural risks are on Tail-Risk.

Timing rows and the volatility gauge

Funding, Options, Liquidations and Contrarian read together as ALIGNED, MIXED or UNAVAILABLE, judged against the current phase. The Options row compares one-month implied with realized volatility (DVOL neutral band 35–70), with chips for the premium and the one-to-six-month curve. Timing is not a second cycle call.

Panels on this view

BTC SetupAction · main panel

Shows: A rule-built plan from cost-basis levels, regime gates, risk limits and base rates.
Changes when: Price enters a declared zone while the gates permit it.
Don’t trust it when: Levels are stale or the setup is withheld.

Timing rowsOn BTC Setup

Shows: Funding, Options, Liquidations and Contrarian, each with state, one value or range, freshness, Action relevance, and invalidation or unavailable reason.
How to read it: They combine as ALIGNED, MIXED or UNAVAILABLE: timing evidence, not a second trade recommendation.
Don’t trust it when: Inputs are stale, or estimated liquidation zones are read as real orders.

DCA MapOn BTC Setup

Shows: A research-only ladder from the DCA plan, BTC Setup, and price-level/candle/cost-basis receipts, with reference shares by zone.
Changes when: A daily close crosses a level and the wider evidence moves with it.
Don’t trust it when: A source or as-of is missing or stale, or zones are read as observed execution. CryptoWatch records none.

Open Action →

08Scores and their limits

Short answerScores summarize evidence; they never set the posture. The Composite Score adds signed inputs from four evidence layers, the Bitcoin Thermometer measures heat from 0 to 100, and CW Risk is cycle temperature. None is a probability.

The four evidence layers

L1 · Macro: Could the backdrop invalidate the read? Money, dollar, yields, credit.
L2 · Cycle: Where are we in the cycle? Phase, halving clock, valuation, trend.
L3 · On-chain: What are holders doing? Holder groups, profit and loss, spot demand.
L4 · Positioning & Timing: Is the crowd one-sided? Funding, options, liquidations.

Composite Score

Each input scores from −2 (euphoria, crowded longs) to +2 (stress, forced selling, crowded shorts). The total falls in one of seven fixed bands.

Score	Evidence label
≥ +16	Strong positive lean
+8 to +16	Positive lean
+2 to +8	Mild positive lean
−2 to +2	Directional read withheld
−8 to −2	Mild negative lean
−16 to −8	Negative lean
< −16	Strong negative lean

Confidence is 60% coverage (live inputs out of 26) plus 40% agreement with the total’s sign. Serious conflicts lower it and move the posture toward Wait. It is not a calibrated probability.

How the score is worked out

Inputs fill a fixed 26-slot universe, so a missing feed lowers coverage instead of leaving the denominator. Each weighted input is clamped to ±3 so one loud series cannot dominate, and cycle anchors such as AVIV outweigh short-term noise such as funding. The bands at ±2, ±8 and ±16 are a fixed convention, not a probability scale. The server builds the score from the daily snapshot. A fresh rebuild never renews an old observation. The API’s legacy BUY, WAIT and SELL keys only classify the score; they grant nothing.

Bitcoin Thermometer

Descriptive heat from 0 to 100 across eight valuation, profit, funding, sentiment, miner and holder-age curves: Ice Cold below 20, Cold to 40, Warm to 55, Hot to 70, Burning above. Context only; it neither confirms a bottom nor changes the posture.

Thermometer inputs and weights

Method bitcoin-thermometer-core8-descriptive-2026-10-15: MVRV Z-Score 12.77%, NUPL 18.09%, Funding EMA 20.21%, Fear and Greed 10.64%, SOPR 15.96%, Puell Multiple 6.38%, Reserve Risk 10.64%, RHODL ratio 5.32%. Funding needs 30 contiguous daily observations. All eight inputs must be current under the 28-hour rule; one missing input withholds the reading and the rest are never reweighted.

Validation and limits

Historical grades are context: no live backtest, no public scoreboard, no probability until its gates pass. A price high without holder or fund support is unconfirmed.

Panels on this view

Bitcoin evidence and Composite ScoreNow

Shows: Composite Score is visible directly below Bitcoin Now: the native signed score, its four weighted layers and their range. The Bitcoin Thermometer beside it is heat, not a second verdict.
Changes when: The score crosses a band; the current Action authority decides whether anything may change.
Time Machine: Opens past days. Original saved daily scores retain their original model; earlier dates use a partial cycle-feed reconstruction. Neither mode is a price forecast, a backtest or a new action instruction.

Bitcoin evidenceNow · attached evidence

Shows: Reported support, pressure and the next dated check, with source dates, coverage and Panel Health one tap away.
How to read it: Its provenance is the Truth/data-quality/conflict receipt plus the Bitcoin State thesis-pillar/invalidation artifact. It never replaces the Action decision.
Don’t trust it when: It is read as a buy or sell signal, or its as-of is missing or stale.

Since YesterdayNow · attached evidence

Shows: Material changes and ranked moves, each a z-score against that metric’s own ~30-day history of changes.
How to read it: |z| under 1 is noise; |z| ≥ 2 is unusual and matters only when a related reading agrees.
Don’t trust it when: Fewer than three metrics are available, the feed is older than 26 hours, or provenance is missing.

Structure, demand & positioningNow · score evidence

Shows: Whether cycle structure, capital flow and derivatives tell the same story.
Don’t trust it when: Fewer than two layers are live.

Open Now →

09Data, freshness and coverage

Short answerEvery number comes from the latest snapshot. When an input is late or missing, the screen says Unavailable instead of guessing, and the posture falls back to Wait. Nothing is entered by hand as a live reading.

Fail closed: A missing or stale input prints Unavailable; other inputs are never reweighted to hide it.
Cadence: Daily series refresh each morning and must be under 28 hours old; live quotes poll often and drop out when missing.
Two clocks per number: When the reading was observed and when CryptoWatch computed it. A recent rebuild never renews an old observation.
Freshness banner: Green inside cadence, amber when anything is stale, red when several are very stale.
What is named: This page names signal classes and CryptoWatch’s own methods. It does not list licensed series or private terminals.

Daily brief

One Telegram brief goes out each morning after the read is current, opening with Home’s posture sentence. CryptoWatch is not an intraday alert tool. The forecast lock that once ran before the brief was stopped on 2026-09-15.

10API and agents

Short answerSoftware can use the same daily read through a public API and a hosted MCP with eleven tools, one per question on this page. The OpenAPI document is the stability contract.

OpenAPI 3.1 specification · Hosted MCP setup guide

Decision state: Composite, cycle, regime, Bitcoin State, daily changes and morning-brief receipts.
Accountability: Calibration, available snapshot dates and CSV exports.
Delivery: Authenticated webhooks with create, list, test, delivery history, failure status and redelivery.

Keys and webhooks

Read endpoints allow anonymous access at the lower limit. For higher limits and write operations, sign in to your CryptoWatch account and use Account → Developer keys; the key is shown once and belongs to that account. Keep it out of browser storage, chat messages and source control. To have a coding agent wire the REST API into a project, use Account → Developer credentials → Copy prompt and keep the raw key in CW_API_KEY.

curl -X POST https://cryptowatch.id/api/public/v1/webhooks \
  -H "X-API-Key: $CRYPTOWATCH_API_KEY" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"url":"https://example.com/cw","events":["composite.changed"]}'

Treasury mNAV stays available, fail-closed, through /api/public/v1/mstr/mnav and MCP tool cw.mstr_mnav. Research theses are experimental endpoints, not a decision surface.

11Glossary

Short answerThe short names on the Now cost ladder, and the words CryptoWatch uses across its pages.

Now cost words

The Now ladder’s short names. Usual is where average profit usually sits, not a target.

Usual: Where average profit is back to its usual level.
Now: Today’s price.
Active: What coins still in the market were paid for.
Recent: What buyers from the last five months paid.
Middle: Half of all coins were bought above this, half below.
Average: What every coin was paid for, on average.
Long-term: What holders of more than five months paid.

Terms

Owner: The one panel allowed to conclude a claim.
Receipt: Detailed evidence under its owner, not a second conclusion.
Fail closed: A missing or stale input prints Unavailable instead of a guessed value.
HIST. BOTTOM: The halving clock’s 900–1,100-day band. Calendar context, not a bottom call.
PASS / OPEN: A recovery check is true now, or still waiting.
ACTIVE / CLEAR: A break condition is firing now, or not.
LTH / STH: Long-term holders (coins unmoved about 155 days or more) and short-term holders, the recent buyers.
Realized Price: The average price at which every coin last moved: the market’s aggregate cost.
True Market Mean: The average cost of coins that are still active, a fair-value line for active investors.
MVRV · SOPR: Price against aggregate cost; whether coins sold today moved at a profit.
Research only: Action copy does not place or observe trades.

12Retired surfaces

Short answerRetired surfaces, when, and what to use instead. Listed once here so the rest of the page describes only what is live.

Daily forecast vote: The daily BULL / BEAR / NEUTRAL forecast vote was stopped on 2026-09-15. No new call is made; past calls are kept as history. CryptoWatch does not publish a public prediction scoreboard.

How the vote was graded

The daily forecast was a deterministic vote over the same live inputs shown on Bitcoin Dashboard. It did not run a multi-agent debate or invent price targets, and missing inputs failed the run. Direction-only calls resolved at T+7d (primary) and T+30d. A directional call was correct if Bitcoin moved in the predicted direction by at least 2.5% over the window. Moves inside ±2.5% were inconclusive. NEUTRAL was graded separately. No percentage printed until that horizon had at least one eligible resolved call.
Track Record and Ledger pages: Retired 2026-09-15. Use the five views on Bitcoin Dashboard.
Cycle Top Radar panel: Retired 2026-08-08. Use CW Risk; its artifact still feeds the de-risk budget.
Distribution Confluence panel: Retired 2026-07-25. Use CW Risk and the distribution phase on Cycle.
Macro-Crypto Regime Matrix: Retired 2026-08-08. Use Macro Permission.
Market Pulse Scorecard: Retired 2026-08-01. Use Macro Permission.
Smart Alerts panel: Retired. Use Since Yesterday on Now.
Browser push alerts: Retired 2026-07-25. Use the daily Telegram brief.
Public evidence services: Intraday delta, social emergence, mindshare and debate feeds; retired in 2026, no replacement.

Disclaimer

Not financial advice. cryptowatch.id is a research and synthesis tool. It is not a signal service, not investment advice, and it cannot see the future. Cycle frameworks fail and past patterns do not repeat mechanically. Use it as one input among many, and never size a position from a dashboard verdict alone.

Some inputs depend on licensed upstream access, so this page documents scoring logic and the classes of evidence that can be disclosed.