Bitcoin Β· power law Β· the sideways test

When does the
floor break?

The power-law floor rises every day. So the price doesn't have to crash to fall below it. If Bitcoin just trades flat for long enough, the rising floor climbs up and overtakes it. This shows how long that would take at any price, and whether a breach would actually break the model.

01 / THE COUNTDOWN

If the price goes sideways from here

connecting… Live BTC spot, auto-refreshes every 60s.

power-law floor (rising) flat price Β· drag ↕ breach point

02 / THE VERDICT

Would a breach invalidate the power law?

Short answer: a brief breach, no. A sustained one, yes. The floor isn't a hard wall. It's the lower edge of a statistical band. Here's how to think about it honestly.

A short dip below wouldn't break it

The floor is the model's βˆ’2Οƒ band (about 0.4Γ— fair value). By construction, a normally-distributed price sits below a βˆ’2Οƒ line roughly 2–3% of the time, so the occasional, brief excursion below the floor is expected, not a refutation. It has happened once already: a few hours below during the March 2020 crash, and the model carried on fine.

A deep, sustained breach would

What would genuinely invalidate the power law is a structural break: the price spending an extended period well below the floor, the log-log fit's RΒ² degrading, and the best-fit slope having to drop materially on each refit. That's the difference between noise around a line and the line no longer being there. One dip is noise. A new, lower regime is invalidation.

Sideways is a slow test, not a crash

A sideways breach is gentle: the floor rises into a flat price rather than the price falling into the floor. But the meaning is sharp. It would say Bitcoin has stopped growing while the model still expects continued (if decelerating) growth. The longer a flat price persists past the breach date below, the more it stops looking like a routine visit to the floor and starts looking like the model breaking.

The power law is a descriptive model, not a law of nature, and "invalidation" isn't a single moment. It's the accumulation of evidence that the relationship no longer holds. This page is an illustration of the model's own logic, not a forecast, and nothing here is investment advice.

Claude Code Prompt (the prompt that builds this page)
Build "Sideways Break" β€” a page on the insight that the power-law floor RISES over time, so the
price doesn't have to crash to fall below it: if Bitcoin just trades flat ("sideways") for long
enough, the rising floor climbs up and overtakes it. Compute, for any price, how long until the
floor catches it β€” and assess whether breaching the floor would invalidate the power law. Output
one self-contained page.

── SHARED DESIGN SYSTEM ──
Dark editorial. Fraunces / Hanken Grotesk / JetBrains Mono. Tokens: --bg:#0f1115 --bg2:#1a1d24
--bg3:#14171d --border:#2a2e37 --border2:#23272f --text:#e6e8eb --muted:#9aa0ab --dim:#6b7280
--accent:#f7931a --blue:#5b9bff --red:#ff6b6b --green:#4ade80. Centered .wrap (~860px), faint
radial-gradient bg, sticky nav (hamburger on mobile, hide on scroll-down). Header = mono orange
kicker + Fraunces h1 with italic-orange <em> + muted lede. Sections with mono .sec-num + h2.
Reusable stat cards and "claim" cards (accent left border; green/red variants). Honest voice;
not advice.

── MODEL ──
Genesis 2009-01-03. floor(days) = 10^-16.493 Γ— days^5.688 Γ— 0.398. Solve for the breach day where
floor(days) = price: days = (price / (10^-16.493 Γ— 0.398))^(1/5.688). fmtMoney() β†’ $/K/M.
Note: the breach DATE is currency-independent (FX cancels), so currency only affects displayed
values. Live BTC spot fetched server-side (cached ~60s); USD/AUD toggle.

── STRUCTURE ──
Header: kicker "Bitcoin Β· power law Β· the sideways test"; h1 "When does the <em>floor break?</em>";
lede: the floor rises every day, so a flat price is eventually overtaken; this shows how long
that takes at any price, and whether a breach would actually break the model.

01 / THE COUNTDOWN
 β€’ Controls: a "Sideways price" text input (defaults to the live spot, with a "β†Ί reset to live"
   link) and a currency select (USD/AUD). A live "live Β· $… Β· updated Ns ago" badge.
 β€’ Three stat cards: time-to-breach (e.g. "β‰ˆ 4 months", or "Below floor" if already under),
   the breach date (Mon YYYY), and price vs today's floor (% above, green/red).
 β€’ A chart (inline SVG, linear y): a rising orange floor line, a dashed white "price held flat"
   horizontal line, today marker, the breach point (red dot + dashed marker where they cross),
   and a light-red shaded "breached" band to the right of the breach. Auto-zoom the time window
   to include today and the breach. Recompute live as the price/currency change.
 β€’ A dynamic sentence interpreting the result (soon / long runway / already below).

02 / THE VERDICT (h2 "Would a breach invalidate the power law?")
 Lead: a brief breach, no β€” a sustained one, yes. Three claim cards:
  β€’ (green) "A short dip below wouldn't break it" β€” the floor is the βˆ’2Οƒ band, so a normal price
    sits below a βˆ’2Οƒ line ~2–3% of the time; an occasional brief excursion is expected; it has
    happened once (a few hours in March 2020) and the model carried on.
  β€’ (red) "A deep, sustained breach would" β€” real invalidation = a structural break: price
    spending an extended period well below the floor, RΒ² degrading, the best-fit slope dropping
    on refit. One dip is noise; a new lower regime is invalidation.
  β€’ "Sideways is a slow test, not a crash" β€” the floor rising into a flat price is gentle, but it
    means growth has stalled while the model expects continued (decelerating) growth.
 Then a dynamic line summarising the current scenario, and a caveat (descriptive model, oracle/
 exchange wicks, not advice).

Footer: the floor formula and links to the explainer / calculator; credit to Giovanni Santostasi.

── SEO ──
title "When Does the Bitcoin Power Law Floor Break?"; meta description; canonical;
OG(article)+Twitter; 🟠 favicon; JSON-LD TechArticle.