When Physics Meets Finance

Most price models feel like guesswork. Trend lines get drawn, redrawn, and quietly abandoned. The Bitcoin Power Law is different. Rather than relying on sentiment or chart patterns, it borrows its logic from physics — the same branch of science that describes how galaxies grow, how cities scale, and how biological organisms develop over time.

At its core, the model says something deceptively simple: Bitcoin’s price, measured on a log-log scale, follows a straight line. That line is anchored to the date of Bitcoin’s genesis block — January 3, 2009 — and it has held, with only minor interruptions, for the asset’s entire history.

As of mid-February 2026, Newhedge’s live Power Law tracker shows the central trendline near $121,733 and the support floor near $51,128. Bitcoin itself trades well above the floor but noticeably below the central trend — a position that carries real analytical weight.

Throughout this guide, we’ll break down the mathematics behind the model, examine who built it and why, assess its historical accuracy, explore what it says about the next market bottom, and stress-test the arguments both for and against it. Whether you’re a long-term Bitcoin investor or simply someone who wants to understand the numbers, this is a framework worth knowing.

What Is the Power Law? A Quick Primer from Physics

Before diving into Bitcoin specifically, it helps to understand what a power law actually is. In mathematics and physics, a power law describes a relationship between two quantities where one varies as a power of the other. The formula looks like this:

y = A × x^n

Here, x is the input variable, n is the exponent, and A is a scaling constant. When you plot a power law on a log-log graph — meaning both axes use a logarithmic scale — the relationship transforms into a straight line. That’s the visual key. Straight lines are easy to extrapolate. More importantly, they suggest the underlying system obeys consistent structural rules.

Power laws appear everywhere in nature. Earthquake magnitude follows a power law, known as the Gutenberg-Richter law. City population sizes follow one too. So does the distribution of website traffic, company revenues, and income. The common thread is self-similarity: the pattern at small scales mirrors the pattern at large scales.

Astrophysicist Giovanni Santostasi noticed that Bitcoin’s long-run price history, when plotted on a log-log chart against time since the genesis block, approximates exactly this kind of straight line. Consequently, that observation became the foundation of what we now call the Bitcoin Power Law model.

Why Log-Log Charts Matter

A regular price chart compresses older data and makes recent moves look enormous. By contrast, an alogarithmic chart treats percentage moves equally regardless of when they happen. A 100% gain from $1 to $2 looks the same as a 100% gain from $50,000 to $100,000.

On a log-log chart — where both the time axis and the price axis are logarithmic — Bitcoin’s price history compresses into a remarkably tidy corridor. The scatter above and below the central line represents normal cyclical volatility. The line itself represents structural, long-run growth.

This matters for investors because it reframes how you think about Bitcoin price dips. What looks like a catastrophic crash on a linear chart often appears as mild, expected noise on a log-log chart. Similarly, what looks like an explosive rally might simply be a reversion to trend.

Giovanni Santostasi and the Birth of the Model

Giovanni Santostasi is not a typical crypto analyst. Trained as a physicist, he spent years studying complex systems and nonlinear dynamics before turning his attention to Bitcoin. His background gave him a different lens: instead of looking at market sentiment or macroeconomic cycles, he looked for structural invariants — patterns that persist regardless of short-term noise.

Santostasi published his findings and has discussed them extensively across crypto research communities. His central claim, backed by regression analysis across more than a decade of Bitcoin price data, is that price grows roughly to the power of 5.8 over time. More precisely, the formula is:

Estimated Price = 10^(-17) × (days since genesis block)^5.8

That exponent of 5.8 is not arbitrary. It emerges from fitting the regression to actual historical price data. When you apply ordinary least squares regression to the log-log transformed data, 5.8 is roughly what you get. Furthermore, the R-squared value — a measure of how well the model fits the data — is exceptionally high, typically above 0.95.

Santostasi has been careful to frame the model as empirical rather than theoretical. He isn’t claiming to have derived 5.8 from first principles. Rather, he observed that the data fit a power law very well, and 5.8 is the exponent that best describes that fit. Whether the exponent will remain stable indefinitely is an open question — and one that critics have latched onto.

How the Model Compares to Other Bitcoin Frameworks

The Bitcoin analytical landscape is crowded. Models like Stock-to-Flow (S2F), the MVRV ratio, and various on-chain metrics all attempt to assign a fair value to Bitcoin. The Power Law differs in one important respect: it makes no claim about supply, adoption rates, or macroeconomic conditions. Time alone drives the prediction.

Stock-to-Flow, popularised by analyst PlanB, ties Bitcoin’s price to its stock-to-flow ratio — the relationship between existing supply and new issuance. The model attracted enormous attention during the 2020-2021 bull market but suffered significant credibility damage when predictions failed in 2022.

The Power Law, by contrast, survived 2022’s brutal bear market with its floor intact. Bitcoin dropped to roughly $15,500 in November 2022 — painful by any measure — but did not break the model’s lower support band. That resilience is one reason analysts who follow this framework remain committed to it. Indeed, surviving an acrypto winter is a meaningful test for any long-term model.

Table 1: Power Law vs. Other Bitcoin Valuation Models

Model	Primary Input	2022 Bear Test	Strengths	Limitations
Bitcoin Power Law	Time (days since Genesis)	Floor held (~$15.5k)	Simple, historically durable, physics-based	Ignores fundamentals; exponent may drift
Stock-to-Flow	Supply scarcity ratio	Significantly missed targets	Intuitive supply narrative	Discredited by 2022 miss
MVRV Ratio	Market vs. realized cap	Signalled oversold accurately	On-chain grounded, reactive	Less useful for forward projections
Realized Price	Average cost basis of holders	Useful support indicator	Reflects the holder’s psychology	Lagging; not a price predictor
Rainbow Chart	Log regression bands	Roughly aligned	Visual simplicity	Subjective color bands; informal

Understanding the Three Lines: Floor, Fair Value, and Ceiling

The Power Law model isn’t just a single prediction line. In practice, it’s a corridor made of three parallel lines on a log-log chart. Each line corresponds to a different multiple of the base power law formula, and each tells a distinct story about where Bitcoin is relative to its long-run trend.

According to BitcoinFairPrice.com, which tracks the model in real time, the three lines are calculated as follows:

Power Law (Central Trend): 1.0117 × 10^(-17) × (days since genesis)^5.82

Fair Value Line: Power Law value multiplied by 0.71

Bottom (Floor) Line: Power Law value multiplied by 0.42

The central trendline represents what you might call equilibrium — the price level at which Bitcoin is neither overextended nor deeply discounted. Prices above the trend signal exuberance. Prices below it signal opportunity, at least within the model’s logic.

The floor line is where the real interest lies. According to proponents, this band represents a hard lower boundary that Bitcoin has never sustainably closed below. The one notable exception came on March 13, 2020, when a COVID-19 panic sell-off briefly pushed Bitcoin below the floor for just a few hours before a rapid recovery. Model advocates treat this as a black swan, not a disproof.

The Rising Floor Mechanic

One of the most important — and often misunderstood — features of the Power Law floor is that it rises every day. Because the model is time-based, waiting does nothing to make entry easier. As time passes, the floor moves upward even if Bitcoin’s price stays flat.

According to analysis published by CryptoSlate, the floor drifts upward by approximately 0.093% per day. At price levels around $60,000-70,000, that translates to roughly $50-65 per day of floor appreciation. Over weeks and months, that daily creep becomes meaningful.

This mechanic creates what analysts describe as a countdown dynamic. If Bitcoin’s price remains flat while the floor rises, eventually the floor catches up to the price — technically creating a ‘break’ even if Bitcoin hasn’t actually moved downward. This is how the mid-2024 narrative about a potential floor break emerged, despite Bitcoin trading comfortably above $60,000 at the time.

As of early 2026, Newhedge’s Power Law tracker shows the floor near $51,128. Bitcoin trading around $95,000-100,000 puts it well above the floor but still below the central trendline — historically a zone that has often resolved upward.

Historical Accuracy: How Well Has the Model Actually Performed?

Any predictive model is only as good as its track record. Fortunately, the Power Law has a long one. Bitcoin’s history stretches back to 2009, giving us over 15 years of data to examine. Let’s look at how the model has held up through each major market cycle.

The 2011-2013 Cycles

Bitcoin’s early price history was chaotic. The asset went from fractions of a cent to over $30, crashed 93%, recovered, and then surged past $1,200 in late 2013. Through all of this, the Power Law floor held. The 2011 crash to roughly $2 didn’t break the lower band. Nor did the subsequent bear market low around $85 in early 2013.

Of course, sceptics reasonably note that these early cycles involve tiny numbers on a log scale. A model fitted to more recent data naturally accommodates early history. Nevertheless, the consistency is notable.

The 2014-2015 Bear Market

After Bitcoin’s first major mainstream moment — the 2013 all-time high near $1,200 — the market endured a brutal two-year bear market. The Mt. Gox collapse shattered confidence. Bitcoin eventually found its bear market low around $175-$200 in January 2015. The Power Law floor at that point in time was well below that level, meaning the model correctly predicted that Bitcoin would not collapse further.

The 2018-2019 Downturn

The 2017 bull run remains legendary. Bitcoin surged past $20,000 in December 2017, then spent all of 2018 losing roughly 84% of its value. By December 2018, it traded near $3,100. The Power Law floor at that time was approximately $1,800-$2,200, and Bitcoin was held above it. Once again, the model’s lower band served as a gravitational boundary.

This particular cycle is significant because it was the first time many mainstream investors experienced a full Bitcoin bear market. Yet for Power Law adherents, the $3,100 low was entirely within expected range — not a crisis, but a reversion toward trend.

The 2022 Collapse and the FTX Crash

The 2022 bear market tested the model more severely than any previous cycle. Bitcoin peaked above $69,000 in November 2021 and then spent most of 2022 declining. The collapse of Terra/Luna in May 2022 accelerated the decline. The November 2022 collapse of FTX — once the world’s second-largest crypto exchange — pushed Bitcoin to roughly $15,500.

The Power Law floor at that time sat around $14,000-$15,000. Bitcoin touched the floor but held above it. For model proponents, this was the acid test. A genuine systemic crisis — bankruptcy, fraud, regulatory panic — failed to break a floor derived purely from a time-based mathematical regression. That’s a remarkable result.

Table 2: Bitcoin Bear Market Lows vs. Power Law Floor

Year	Bear Market Low (approx.)	Power Law Floor (approx.)	Floor Breached?	Recovery Duration
2011	$2.00	$0.10	No	~18 months
2015	$175	$150	No	~24 months
2018	$3,100	$1,900	No	~12 months
2020 (COVID)	$3,800	$4,100	Briefly (hours)	~2 weeks
2022 (FTX)	$15,500	$14,500	No	~14 months
2024 (correction)	$49,000	$40,000	No	~4 months

The Formula in Detail: What Does Price = A x (Days)^5.8 Actually Mean?

Let’s get precise about the mathematics. The core Power Law formula, as documented by Decrypt, takes this form:

Estimated Price = A × (Days since Genesis Block)^n

Where A = 10^(-17) and n = 5.8 (with some trackers using 5.82 for greater precision). The genesis block was mined on January 3, 2009, so ‘days since genesis block’ is simply the number of days elapsed since that date.

Let’s test this with a rough calculation. As of early February 2026, approximately 6,240 days have passed since January 3, 2009. Plugging in: 10^(-17) × 6,240^5.8. Computing 6,240^5.8 on a calculator yields approximately 1.2 × 10^21. Multiply by 10^(-17), and you get roughly $12,000 for the raw formula output — but remember, this is the base, not the central trendline directly. The BitcoinFairPrice calculator applies additional scaling constants to produce the fair value and floor bands you see on charts.

The key insight is that the exponent of 5.8 produces growth that is much slower than exponential but much faster than linear. It’s power-law growth — the kind associated with network effects, adoption curves, and complex adaptive systems. Notably, this matches how other technology adoption curves have looked historically.

Network Effects and Metcalfe’s Law Connection

Some researchers connect the Power Law to Metcalfe’s Law, which states that the value of a network grows proportionally to the square of its number of users. If Bitcoin adoption itself follows a power law in time, then its price — as a function of network value — should also follow a power law.

This creates a theoretical grounding for the empirical observation. Bitcoin isn’t just growing randomly; it’s growing because its user base and utility are expanding according to well-understood network scaling principles. The time-based Power Law, from this perspective, is really a proxy for adoption growth.

Santostasi has explored this connection extensively. His view is that Bitcoin operates as a self-reinforcing system — a complex adaptive system where each additional user increases value for all existing users. That dynamic, embedded in the network’s structure, is what produces power-law scaling in the price data.

What the Model Says About the Next Bitcoin Bottom

This is the question most investors actually care about. Given the Power Law framework, where might Bitcoin’s next major low occur?

The answer depends on when the cycle peaks and how long the subsequent bear market lasts. According to predictions cited by Decrypt, Santostasi’s model had forecast a cycle peak around $210,000 in January 2026 — a target that Bitcoin has not yet reached as of this writing. The model’s cycle low prediction following that peak sits near $60,000.

However, Bitcoin Magazine’s analysis by analyst Matt Crosby offers a complementary take. Using historical MVRV multiples and slope-trended realised price growth, Crosby suggests a potential top near $180,000 and a subsequent bear market low in the $40,000-$70,000 range — broadly consistent with Power Law support levels during a 2026-2027 bear phase.

The Floor’s Position Through 2026 and Beyond

Using the Power Law formula with current parameters, we can project where the floor will sit at various future dates. Because the floor rises daily, these projections carry real strategic weight for investors planning entry points.

Date	Estimated Floor Price	Estimated Fair Value	Notes
February 2026 (now)	$51,128	$86,400	Current position per Newhedge
June 2026	$55,000	$92,000	Projected, assuming a constant growth rate
December 2026	$60,000	$101,000	Year-end 2026 estimate
June 2027	$65,000	$110,000	Mid-2027 floor projection
December 2027	$70,000	$120,000	Year-end 2027 estimate
2030	$110,000	$185,000	Long-range projection
2033	$200,000	$340,000	Target for $1M long-term peak alignment

Note: These projections are model-based estimates. They are not financial advice and carry significant uncertainty. See the disclaimer section at the end of this article.

The practical implication is clear. If Bitcoin experiences a bear market in 2026-2027, the Power Law floor suggests a meaningful support zone in the $50,000-$65,000 range. That’s dramatically higher than the $15,500 low seen in 2022, reflecting the floor’s relentless upward drift.

How Analysts Use the Power Law for Investment Timing

Understanding the model is one thing. Applying it practically is another. Several analytical frameworks have emerged around the Power Law to help investors make more disciplined decisions.

The Position Bands Approach

One popular approach divides the corridor between the floor and the central trendline into zones. When Bitcoin trades close to the floor, it’s statistically in a high-value zone — historically, buying near the floor has produced excellent long-term returns. When it trades at or above the central trendline, the risk-reward shifts unfavourably for new entries.

Accordingly, some investors use the model as a dollar-cost averaging enhancer — increasing position size when price approaches the floor and reducing it when price runs significantly above trend. This isn’t a trading system; it’s a long-term accumulation framework.

Comparing Power Law Position to On-Chain Metrics

The Power Law works best when combined with on-chain data. Tools like Glassnode, LookIntoBitcoin, andCryptoQuant provide metrics such as MVRV Z-Score, SOPR, and realised price that can confirm or challenge what the Power Law signals.

For instance, when the Power Law floor suggests Bitcoin is near support, AND the MVRV Z-Score enters its green accumulation zone, AND long-term holders are absorbing supply, the confluence creates a much stronger case for accumulation. No single model should be used in isolation.

Similarly, Bitcoin’s SOPR (Spent Output Profit Ratio) can confirm whether on-chain participants are selling at a loss — a condition that often coincides with market bottoms. When SOPR dips below 1.0, and the Power Law floor is nearby, historical data suggests high-probability long-term entry points.

What About Macro Conditions?

The Power Law does not attempt to model macroeconomic variables — interest rates, inflation, monetary policy, or regulatory changes. Critics argue this is a major flaw. Supporters counter that over a long enough time horizon, macro cycles average out and the structural adoption curve dominates.

The Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy clearly affected Bitcoin’s 2022 bear market. Rising rates drained risk appetite from speculative assets broadly. Yet despite that macro headwind, the Power Law floor held. This outcome lends support to the view that macro factors influence timing and depth within the corridor but don’t alter the corridor itself.

The Criticisms: Where the Model Could Break Down

No model deserves uncritical acceptance. The Power Law has attracted serious intellectual pushback, and investors should understand the strongest objections before relying on the framework.

Criticism 1: Overfitting to Historical Data

Statistical models fitted to historical data risk overfitting — capturing noise as well as signal. The concern with the Power Law is that it was fitted to Bitcoin’s entire price history, including the spectacular early growth from fractions of a cent to thousands of dollars. Remove those early years, and the fit might look quite different.

Santostasi addresses this by noting that the model has continued to perform out-of-sample — meaning it has made forward-looking predictions that proved accurate after the model was developed. However, the number of full market cycles is still limited (roughly four to five complete cycles), which is a relatively thin dataset for statistical confidence.

Criticism 2: The Exponent May Not Be Stable

The exponent of 5.8 is not derived from theory. It’s an empirical fit. As Bitcoin matures, adoption growth rates will naturally slow. A maturing asset with billions of users cannot grow at the same power-law rate as an asset with thousands of users. As Bitcoin’s adoption curve flattens, the exponent should decrease — and that transition could render the current floor projections too high.

This is perhaps the most important long-term critique. The Power Law is calibrated for an asset in rapid, accelerating adoption. If Bitcoin transitions into a more mature store-of-value asset — closer to digital gold than a growth technology — the model would need recalibration.

Criticism 3: The Model Isn’t Falsifiable Without Clear Rules

As noted by the analysis on DropsTab, the model faces a falsifiability problem. If Bitcoin closes below the floor once, is the model broken? Twice? For how many consecutive weeks? Without a pre-committed rule specifying what constitutes a genuine break, advocates can always attribute floor violations to noise.

Scientific models require clear falsifiability criteria. The Power Law community has been somewhat loose about this. Some practitioners define a break as a sustained weekly close below the floor for four consecutive weeks. Others use monthly closes. The lack of consensus weakens the model’s scientific credibility, even if its track record remains strong.

Criticism 4: Regulatory Risk Is Unmodeled

A serious regulatory crackdown — a Bitcoin ban in major economies, for instance, or a coordinated global restriction — could damage Bitcoin fundamentally in ways that a time-based formula simply cannot anticipate. The Power Law assumes Bitcoin continues to exist and gain adoption over time. That’s a reasonable assumption, but not a certainty.

The closest historical analogue is China’s periodic crackdowns. Each time, Bitcoin experienced sharp short-term drops, but recovered and ultimately surpassed previous highs. Model proponents cite this resilience as evidence. Critics note that China banned rather than eliminated — a global coordinated ban would be structurally different.

Power Law vs. Halving Cycles: Two Complementary Frameworks

Bitcoin investors frequently discuss halving events — the periodic reductions in Bitcoin’s block reward that occur roughly every four years. Many analysts believe halvings are the primary driver of Bitcoin’s four-year market cycles.

Interestingly, the Power Law and the halving cycle framework are not mutually exclusive. Rather, they operate on different time scales. The Power Law describes the long-run secular trend — the multi-year structural trajectory. The halving cycle describes medium-run oscillations around that trend.

Think of it this way: the Power Law defines the channel, and halving cycles define where Bitcoin oscillates within that channel. After a halving, reduced supply combined with stable or growing demand tends to push price upward, often toward or through the central trendline. Subsequent profit-taking and market exhaustion pull the price back toward the floor. Each cycle plays out higher on the Power Law chart because the floor itself has risen.

The 2024 Halving in Context

Bitcoin’s fourth halving occurred in April 2024, reducing the block reward from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC. According to historical halving analysis, post-halving bull markets have typically peaked 12-18 months after the halving date. That would suggest a bull market peak somewhere between April and October 2025.

By early 2026, Bitcoin had indeed experienced significant appreciation from its 2023 lows. The Power Law framework situates this within a continuing secular trend. The current price, while below the central trendline, remains firmly above the floor — exactly where you’d expect to find Bitcoin during the mid-to-late phase of a bull cycle before any potential mean reversion.

Real-Time Tools for Tracking the Power Law

Several publicly available tools allow anyone to track the Power Law in real time. Each offers a slightly different interface and set of features.

Newhedge Bitcoin Power Law Tracker — Provides the central trendline and floor in real time, updated daily. The site labels itself a ‘long-term log-log power-law model’ and credits Santostasi. Currently shows the trendline near $121,733 and the floor near $51,128.

BitcoinFairPrice.com — Displays fair value and bottom price with a detailed FAQ explaining the formula. The bottom price is clearly stated: the formula times 0.42. The site emphasises that the bottom price has never been permanently breached.

LookIntoBitcoin Power Law Chart — Offers an oscillator view showing where Bitcoin currently sits within the Power Law corridor, expressed as a normalised reading between -1 and +1.

Bitcoin Magazine Power Law Analysis — Published analysis integrating Power Law with on-chain and cycle data for bear market floor estimates.

CryptoSlate Power Law Coverage — News coverage and analysis of Power Law developments, particularly around notable threshold events.

Additionally, TradingView hosts several community-created Power Law scripts that allow users to overlay the model on their own Bitcoin price charts. Searching ‘Bitcoin Power Law’ in TradingView’s public scripts library returns multiple options.

Long-Term Projections: What Does the Model Forecast for Bitcoin’s Future?

One of the most discussed aspects of the Power Law is its long-term price projections. Because the model is anchored to a formula and a start date, you can calculate projected prices at any future point simply by plugging in the number of days.

Santostasi’s model, as summarised by Decrypt, projects a long-term price of $1 million by approximately 2033. This figure represents the central trendline at that date — not the floor, and not a guaranteed outcome. Nevertheless, the projection has attracted substantial attention because it emerges from a model with genuine historical predictive power.

By 2030, the Power Law central trendline is projected to sit near $150,000-$200,000. The floor at that point would be in the $100,000-$120,000 range — meaning that what is currently a rare price spike would become the structural lower bound within just four years.

The Diminishing Returns Reality

Importantly, even if the Power Law holds, returns inevitably diminish over time. A model that projects $1 million by 2033, starting from $100,000 today, implies roughly a 10x return over seven years. Substantial by any standard — but vastly smaller than the 1,000x returns of Bitcoin’s earlier years.

This is inherent to power-law growth. The curve flattens as the base grows larger. Early adopters who bought Bitcoin at $1 experienced gains of several million per cent. Buyers today would experience gains of perhaps 10x-30x over the next decade if the model holds. Both outcomes represent extraordinary performance relative to traditional asset classes, but the character of the investment has fundamentally changed.

For context, the S&P 500 has returned roughly 10% annually over the long run. A 10x Bitcoin return over seven years would imply a CAGR of approximately 39% — still exceptional, but grounded in the reality of a maturing asset.

Practical Investment Takeaways

Given everything discussed above, what are the actionable insights for a Bitcoin investor? Several principles emerge from a careful reading of the Power Law framework.

Don’t Try to Catch Exact Bottoms

The Power Law floor isn’t a precise number. It’s a band with some width. Attempting to time entry to the exact floor price is impractical and unnecessary. The model’s real value is in identifying zones — broad price ranges where the risk-reward historically favours long-term accumulation.

Practically, this means treating $50,000-$65,000 Bitcoin (2026 reference prices) as strategically interesting territory regardless of whether the floor is precisely at $51,000 or $54,000. The precision offered by four decimal places in the formula is a statistical illusion; the structural insight is what matters.

Use the Model as a Backdrop, Not a Signal

The Power Law tells you about the structural range. It doesn’t tell you when within that range to act. Timing signals benefit from on-chain analysis tools, sentiment indicators, and macro context. The Power Law is most useful as a framework that prevents catastrophic errors — like selling at the floor or buying in an extreme bubble — rather than as a precise entry signal.

Respect Position Sizing

Even a model with an excellent track record can fail. Black swan events — exchange collapses, regulatory crackdowns, network-level security failures — could disrupt any projection. Consequently, appropriate position sizing remains essential regardless of what any model suggests. Investing only what you can afford to lose entirely remains sound advice for any cryptocurrency exposure.

Watch the Floor, but Don’t Fear It

If Bitcoin does breach the Power Law floor sustainably, that would be genuinely significant news — not just for Power Law adherents, but for the entire Bitcoin investment thesis. It would suggest that the adoption curve has broken down or that some structural change has fundamentally altered Bitcoin’s trajectory.

However, the appropriate response to a floor break is analysis, not panic. A one-week close below the floor is different from a six-month close below the floor. Context matters enormously. The 2020 COVID break lasted hours; it was a liquidity event, not a structural break. Future floor tests deserve the same analytical care.

The Power Law in the Broader Context of Bitcoin Research

The Power Law sits within a growing body of serious quantitative Bitcoin research. Over the past decade, the asset has attracted attention from academic economists, physicists, and data scientists who approach it without the evangelism of retail cryptocurrency communities.

Research published through platforms like SSRN, arXiv, and academic journals has explored Bitcoin’s statistical properties from multiple angles. Findings consistently confirm unusual behaviours: heavy-tailed distributions, long-range correlations, and — consistent with the Power Law hypothesis — stable scaling relationships in long-run price data.

One area of active research involves comparing Bitcoin’s scaling behaviour to other financial assets. Stocks, commodities, and currencies don’t exhibit the same power-law stability over time. This uniqueness might reflect Bitcoin’s status as a pure network asset — its value derives entirely from collective belief and utility, with no underlying cash flows or commodity value to anchor it. Paradoxically, that makes the adoption-driven Power Law a more appropriate model than discounted cash flow analysis.

Academic Reception

Academic reception has been mixed. Some researchers applaud the empirical rigour of regression-based approaches. Others raise concerns about regime changes and the limited sample of complete cycles. The Efficient Market Hypothesis school argues that any predictable pattern would be arbitraged away, though Bitcoin’s market microstructure differs enough from equities that this critique may not fully apply.

Regardless of academic debate, the Power Law has earned a place in serious investor discussions. Models are tools, not truths. The Power Law, used thoughtfully alongside other frameworks, helps investors maintain perspective through Bitcoin’s extreme volatility.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Bitcoin Power Law

Has the Power Law ever been wrong?

The model has held across 15+ years, with the March 2020 COVID crash being the only instance where Bitcoin briefly dipped below the floor — for a matter of hours, not days. No sustained break of the floor has occurred in Bitcoin’s history to date.

Who created the Bitcoin Power Law model?

The model was developed by Giovanni Santostasi, an astrophysicist with expertise in complex systems. He identified that Bitcoin’s price follows a power-law relationship with time when plotted on a log-log scale.

What happens if the Power Law breaks?

A genuine, sustained break of the floor would invalidate the model and would likely signal fundamental structural changes in Bitcoin’s adoption trajectory. Proponents would need to assess whether the break reflects a permanent shift or an extreme temporary deviation.

Does the Power Law predict short-term price movements?

Absolutely not. The Power Law is a long-term framework. It says nothing about where Bitcoin will trade next week or next month. Short-term price movement involves far too much noise for any long-term regression model to capture meaningfully.

What price does the model project for 2030?

Based on current model parameters, the central trendline is projected near $150,000-$200,000 by 2030, with the floor in the $100,000-$120,000 range. These are projections, not guarantees.

Conclusion: A Physics Lens on Bitcoin’s Long Journey

Bitcoin’s Power Law is not a crystal ball. No model ever is. What it offers instead is something arguably more valuable: a structured, evidence-based framework for understanding Bitcoin’s long-run trajectory. By treating the asset as a complex adaptive system following power-law scaling — similar to how physical and biological systems grow — the model reframes Bitcoin’s notorious volatility as noise around a predictable trend.

Across 15 years and every major market crisis, the Power Law floor has held. The COVID crash of 2020 came closest to breaking it, and even then, the breach lasted only hours. Through exchange collapses, regulatory crackdowns, and macroeconomic tightening, the structural floor has remained intact. That’s a genuinely impressive track record for any financial model.

Nevertheless, the model’s limitations are real. The exponent may shift as Bitcoin matures. Regulatory risk remains unmodeled. Falsifiability criteria lack consensus. Intelligent investors should use the Power Law as one tool among many — a long-horizon backdrop that helps prevent panic selling at bottoms and overconfidence near peaks.

As of early 2026, the Power Law places Bitcoin firmly within its expected corridor: above the floor, below the central trendline. That position historically has marked excellent long-term accumulation opportunities — not certainties, but statistically favourable setups for patient investors. The next market cycle will test the model again. Based on 15 years of history, the model has earned the benefit of the doubt.

Ultimately, the power of the Power Law lies not in any specific price target, but in the discipline it imposes. When prices crash, and fear is everywhere, the model whispers: this is within the expected range. When prices soar, and euphoria takes hold, it whispers: this, too, is temporary. That kind of systematic calm is worth a great deal in the inherently emotional world of crypto investing.

Legal Disclaimer

This article is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing in this article constitutes financial, investment, legal, or tax advice. The Bitcoin Power Law model and all price projections discussed are analytical tools with no guarantee of future accuracy. Cryptocurrency investments carry substantial risk, including total loss of capital. Always conduct your own research and consult a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions. Past performance of any model or asset does not guarantee future results.

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References

[1] G. Santostasi, ‘Bitcoin Power Law Model,’ as discussed and tracked at Newhedge Power Law Tracker, accessed February 2026.

[2] I. Hazan, ‘The Bitcoin Power Law: A Mathematical Approach to Predicting Bitcoin’s Price,’ Decrypt, https://decrypt.co/resources/the-bitcoin-power-law-a-mathematical-approach-to-predicting-bitcoins-price, accessed February 2026.

[3] ‘Bitcoin Power Law Price Calculator,’ BitcoinFairPrice.com, https://bitcoinfairprice.com/, accessed February 2026.

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