With each subsequent Bitcoin halving cycle, the supply of new BTC entering circulation drops by half, leading to increased scarcity over an extended period of time. CoinGecko notes in research report that since the first halving in 2012, block rewards have declined by 87.5%, from 25 BTC to 3.125 BTC.
The report from CoinGecko also mentioned that during the same period, the price of Bitcoin surged by as much as 9110x to $109,000 on September 1, 2025. And at the time of writing, the BTC price has set another all-time high of over $125,000 as the month of October (or rather “Uptober”) begins.
Notably, Bitcoin has consistently reached new all-time highs throughout each cycle, usually occurring post-halving.
However, this trend was bucked in March of last year, when BTC reached a new ATH of $73,400 before the fourth halving.
The degree of post-halving price gains have “compressed over time since the second halving, with peak cycle returns falling from 29x in 2017 to 6.7x in 2021, and just +93.1% so far in 2025.”
Trading volume has also risen “from ~$20 million in 2013 to ~$30 billion in 2025.”
Bitcoin reportedly outperformed the annualized return of traditional assets in 2024, “posting a +119% price growth for the year, ahead of the +24.0% and +30.8% returns by the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq, respectively.”
But both indices are now catching up with Bitcoin’s +16.3% increase in 2025, as BTC’s correlation with the S&P 500 continues its uptrend, increase from 0.75 in 2024 to 0.86 this year.
Meanwhile, Gold has been the second best performer during the last 2 years, extending gains by +31.7% year-to-date, due partly to concerns of economic uncertainty and Trump’s tariffs coming into effect.
Despite being referred to as ‘digital gold,’ BTC’s correlation with the precious mental has significantly weakened from 0.64 in 2024 to 0.53 as of August tbis year.
Meanwhile, the outlook for the US dollar has turned bleak in 2025, with a -10.4% plunge.
Trump’s economic policies are said to have considerably weakened the US dollar since his inauguration at the beginning of 2025.
Despite experiencing a significant 68% drop in active users during the extended crypto bear market of 2018, the average daily users on Bitcoin recovered by 41.7% from 666,000 in 2018 to 944,000 as of August this year.
Major uptrends in Bitcoin network activity often tend to come right before major price movements.
The network recorded its all-time high of 1.36 million active users during April of 2021 as BTC surged past the $64,000 mark and stayed elevated at ~1.0 million daily users before BTC’s -35% price drop in May.
But that dynamic has seemingly shifted since 2023 with the launch of Bitcoin Ordinals and BRC-20 back in the early months 2023.
As these initiatives gained more traction, active Bitcoin users increased from an average of 900,000 in 2023 January to 1.10 million everyday users in 2023 May and has continued to “ebb and flow” with Ordinals trading activity.