Puell multiple

The line is the Puell multiple, one reading a week: the dollar value of the bitcoin mined each day, divided by its own average over the past 365 days. ×1 means miners are earning what they have averaged over the past year, ×0.5 half of it, ×4 four times.

The line is coloured by its value, green when miners' pay is low against the year and red when it is high. The dashed green line is ×0.5 and the dashed red one ×4; the chart calls readings under ×0.5 miner capitulation, readings over ×4 the historic top zone, and everything between mid-range. The scale on the right reads the colour, and hovering shows the multiple, its zone, the week and bitcoin's price then.

The chart opens on the last four years; the chips choose other windows or the whole record. Dashed verticals mark the halvings.

Every block pays its miner new bitcoin, 3.125 of them since the halving of April 2024. The day's new coins priced in dollars are what the network pays its miners in issuance, and the multiple sets that against its own 365-day average. Perly draws the series Bitview computes from a full bitcoin node, thinned to one reading a week.

Halvings move the multiple mechanically. On the day of a halving the day's issuance halves while the 365-day average still holds a year of the old reward, so the multiple drops by about half and stays low until the average catches up a year later.

David Puell introduced the multiple. The reasoning is that miners must sell part of what they mine to pay for power and machines, so their income against its own recent past says how much pressure they are under, and how much they may have to sell.

The troughs in the table from 2011 to 2022 were all about 0.4 or 0.5, and the peaks of 2013 and 2017 went past 4. The 2021 peak, in February, stayed under 4. Mining has changed a great deal since 2011, from hobbyists' computers to industrial farms, so the levels of the early cycles are landmarks rather than rules.