Question 1

How do you read a returns heatmap?

Accepted Answer

In the monthly view, months run across and years run down. Each cell is that month's return: green is up, red is down, and on the stepped palettes a darker cell means a bigger move. Read down a column first for seasonality, then across a row for the year's rhythm, then check the five summary rows at the bottom: “Average,” “Median,” “Win rate,” “Best” and “Worst.”

Hover a cell to see its start and end prices, the period high and low, and how it ranks against the same month in other years. Click it and the side panel draws that period's daily path, overlaid with the same month in past years and their median.

Question 2

How are monthly returns calculated?

Accepted Answer

Close to close: this month's last daily close divided by last month's last daily close, minus 1. Daily, weekly, quarterly and yearly returns use the same formula with different start and end dates, and weeks run Monday to Sunday (ISO weeks). Every period rolls over at 00:00 UTC.

For example, BTC in November 2024 ran from the October 31 close to the November 30 close and gained 37.32%. Sites that cut the day in a different time zone can show the same month a few tenths of a percentage point apart.

Question 3

Why does this month's cell have a dashed border?

Accepted Answer

A dashed border means the period hasn't closed yet. The number is the change from the last period's close to the current price, so it moves with the market. On October 16 the October cell covers only half the month, so it stays out of the stats at the bottom until the month closes.

A cell with a small triangle in the top-left corner is a “Listing period”: the coin started trading partway through, so the return runs from its first daily close. It's also left out of the stats.

Question 4

How are the cell colors set?

Accepted Answer

The default “Classic” palette only shows direction: green for up, red for down, with the “Average” and “Median” rows in gray, so the green months jump out at a glance. The “Colors” button at the top right of the heatmap switches to one of four stepped palettes: “Emerald,” “Sea salt,” “Exchange” and “Soft.” All of them keep green for up and red for down, and share images follow your choice.

Stepped palettes split up moves and down moves into 5 steps each. Full color is set per coin and per timeframe from that coin's own volatility: the 90th percentile of absolute returns across all closed cells. A cell gets one step darker at 15%, 35%, 60% and 85% of that full-color value, and the ends of the legend show the return that maps to full color. Colors aren't comparable across coins, so compare the numbers.

Question 5

What do win rate and median mean?

Accepted Answer

Win rate is the number of years a column closed green divided by the total number of years. The median is the middle value once the column is sorted from low to high. The average gets dragged around by outliers: BTC gained 450% in November 2013, which pulls the November average up to +41.3% while the median is just +8.8%.

For seasonality, lead with the median and win rate and treat the average as a footnote. With only a dozen or so years of data, one year more or less moves the win rate by several percentage points.

Question 6

What does “Priced in BTC” mean?

Accepted Answer

The coin's price is divided by the BTC price on the same day, so you can see whether it outperformed or underperformed BTC. A positive monthly return priced in BTC means the coin rose more, or fell less, than BTC that month.

Plenty of traders use it to call altcoin season (altseason): when most major coins are up priced in BTC, money is rotating into alts. BTC itself can only be priced in USD, and the halving cycle chart is always in USD.

Question 7

How do I compare monthly returns across coins?

Accepted Answer

In the coin comparison table, each row is a coin and each column is a month. Three views sit on top: “Historical median” shows what each coin usually does that month, “Win rate” shows the share of years it closed green, and “2026” shows each month's actual return this year.

Click a column head to sort by it. The default sort is the current month, so you can see straight away which coins have the strongest Octobers on record. Click any row to load that coin into the heatmap and stats above. The fewer years under a coin's name, the less weight its numbers deserve.

Question 8

How does the DCA backtest work?

Accepted Answer

Dollar-cost averaging (DCA) means buying a fixed dollar amount on a fixed schedule. Think of the backtest as a DCA calculator run on real history: it starts from the month you pick and buys at the UTC daily close on the 1st of each month or every Monday. It shows total invested, coins held, current value and average cost, then compares the result with putting the same total in as a lump sum on day one.

Example: $100 of BTC on the 1st of every month since October 2023 adds up to 37 buys and $3,700 invested by October 16, 2026, now worth about $4,473, a +20.9% return. The same money as a lump sum on October 1, 2023 is up +192.5%. Fees and slippage aren't included, and the backtest uses daily closes, so real fills would differ.

Question 9

How do I share a chart image?

Accepted Answer

Every module has a “Screenshot” button at its top right, and “Share” in the header opens the heatmap image by default; pressing S does the same. Pick “Landscape” or “Portrait,” “Dark” or “Light.” The image carries the coin, timeframe, data time and stats basis, so it still makes sense when you drop it into a group chat.

“Copy image” lets you paste it straight into a chat, and “Save image” saves a PNG. A plain screenshot works too: every card footer shows the coin, quote currency and data time.

Question 10

What's the best month for Bitcoin historically?

Accepted Answer

On monthly returns from 2013 to 2025, October is the strongest: 10 green closes in 13 years and a median of +14.6%. February is next, also green in 10 years, with a median of +12.2%. The worst months for Bitcoin are August and September: August closed green in only 4 years with a median of −8.5%, and September in 5 years with a median of −3.2%.

By quarter, Q4 has a median of +47.5%, far above the other three, yet Q4 was still down in 5 of those 13 years. Halving cycles, rates and ETF flows change every year, so past seasonality is background, not a plan.

Question 11

Is “Uptober” real?

Accepted Answer

On the numbers, yes: October has been BTC's most reliable up month. “Uptober” mashes up “up” and “October” and means October tends to rally. Of the 13 Octobers from 2013 to 2025, 10 closed green; the misses were 2014, 2018 and 2025.

Once a pattern gets famous, more people front-run it, and the move can come early, in September. A win rate describes a past tendency, and one month's stats on their own aren't a reason to put on a trade.

Question 12

How do “Next 30 days” and “This day in history” work?

Accepted Answer

“This day in history” lists the close on the same calendar day in past years, plus the return 7 and 30 days after that close. The fourth card at the top rolls those years up: counting 30 days from the October 16 close, BTC was up in 9 of 13 years, with a median of +11.3%.

The date moves every day, so tomorrow you'll see the stats counted from October 17. A 30-day window spans two months, so its numbers won't line up with the monthly table.

Question 13

Which past year is this year most like?

Accepted Answer

The page compares this year's path from January 1 to today with the same stretch of every past year, day by day, and averages the gap between the two lines; the smaller the gap, the closer the match. As of October 16, BTC's closest match is 2015, with an average daily gap of 21%: both years opened with a big drop, then chopped sideways near the lows through midyear. In the path comparison chart, the thick line is this year, the yellow line is the closest year, the dashed line is the median of all years and the other years are thin gray lines.

Looking alike doesn't mean the rest of the year will follow. What that year did next is a reference, not a forecast. Click a year chip above the chart to compare with a different year.

Question 14

How do I read the Bitcoin halving cycle chart?

Accepted Answer

BTC has a halving roughly every four years, when the block reward paid to miners is cut in half. The last three were on July 9, 2016, May 11, 2020 and April 20, 2024. Each line on the chart starts from the price on halving day; the x-axis is days since the halving and the y-axis is the multiple of that price, on a log scale.

As of October 16 this cycle is on day 909 after the halving, with price at 1.26× the halving-day price. At the same point the 2016 cycle was at 5.89× and the 2020 cycle at 2.44×. The 2016 cycle topped on day 525, in December 2017. With only three cycles to compare, the sample is tiny.

Question 15

Can I trade on historical returns alone?

Accepted Answer

We don't recommend it. Seasonality stats only tell you whether the same window went up or down more often over the past dozen-plus years. They ignore the current trend, flows, news and liquidity. BTC closed October green in 77% of years, and October 2014 still dropped 13.6%.

Use them as background. Read them alongside key levels, the higher-timeframe trend, open interest and funding rates before you size a position and set a stop.

Question 16

Where does the data come from, and how often does it update?

Accepted Answer

Prices come from spot markets on major exchanges: BTC and ETH use their longest-running USD pairs, and every other coin uses its USDT pair. Prices update live, so in-progress cells like this month, this quarter and this year move with them; closed periods never change.

Every period closes at 00:00 UTC, and the times on the page and in share images are UTC too. Hover over or click the “Live” badge at the top to see the time of the last price.

Question 17

Which coins are covered, and why do some have short histories?

Accepted Answer

The coin picker at the top covers the major crypto assets, ordered by aggregate open interest, and you can search it.

History length depends on when the coin's price record starts: BTC goes back to 2010 and ETH to 2015. The listing month covers only part of a month, so it's marked as a “Listing period” and left out of the stats.

Question 18

How do I use the page?

Accepted Answer

Pick the coin and quote currency at the top, and switch between “Day,” “Week,” “Month” and “Quarter” above the heatmap. Hover a cell for details, or click it to draw that period's path on the right. On the keyboard, ← → switch the timeframe, J and K jump to the next and previous coin, / opens coin search, S opens Share and Esc closes dialogs.

The page always opens on the monthly view. The coin is part of the address (for example ?symbol=ETH), so you can share the link directly; your quote currency, colors, sort order and DCA settings are saved in this browser for next time.

BTC Returns

Monthly returns

Coin comparison30 major coins · Priced in USD

Path comparisonBTC · from Jan 1 each year · log scale

This day in history

DCA backtestBTC · in USD · buys at the UTC daily close

Related tools

FAQ

What is a returns heatmap (historical returns table)?

Reading the chart

Tools

Seasonality and trading

Data and controls