Cost-Basis Cycle ThermometerTRINITY EXCLUSIVE
A 0-100 cycle thermometer reading where the BTC spot price sits relative to the MEDIAN cost basis of the supply - the median of the on-chain cost-basis distribution. The reading is a Trinity percentile-rank construction of how far spot sits above that median across the full history, so it is bounded 0-100, repaint-free (a past reading never changes as new data arrives), and comparable across cycles. The median is robust to the cheap early-coin tail that drags the mean (realized price) down, sharpening the top readings. Empirically across 3.5 verified cycles the Cold zone (low) coincided with cycle lows and the Hot zone (high) with cycle highs: forward one-year outcomes from the Cold zone were historically strong while outcomes from the Hot zone were historically weak. A reading of regime, not a recommendation.
Trinity exclusive model
This metric is a proprietary Trinity Insights model. Its formula, inputs, weights and parameters are NOT disclosed. The page documents only the output (bounded scale, interpretation zones, historical context). Access to the score and its time series is via the REST API and the MCP server, subject to the required tier.
What is it?
The Cost-Basis Cycle Thermometer reads, on a 0-100 scale, where the Bitcoin spot price sits relative to the MEDIAN cost basis of the circulating supply - the median of the on-chain cost-basis distribution (the price at which each coin last moved). The thermometer ranks how far spot is stretched above (or below) that median against the entire history, so today's reading answers a simple question: compared with everything we have seen before, how stretched is the price above (or below) what the typical coin paid? A low reading is Cold - the price is near or below the median holder's cost. A high reading is Hot - the price is far above it. The reading is repaint-free: a past value never changes when new data arrives, and the 0-100 bound makes cold and hot directly comparable across every cycle.
How to read
Read a single oscillator line from 0 to 100, with three shaded regimes behind it. The Cold band (0-20, blue) marks the periods when the price was near or below the median holder's cost basis; the Neutral band (20-80) is the broad mid-cycle middle; the Hot band (80-100, red) marks the periods when the price was far above the median cost. The Bitcoin spot price is overlaid as a white line on the right (logarithmic) axis so you can place each cold and hot passage in its market context. Read it as a temperature: the line dips into the Cold band as the market cools toward the lower part of its cost-basis range, and pushes into the Hot band as it heats toward the upper part. Use the zones toggle to show or hide the cold/hot shading, and the BTC overlay toggle to compare the thermometer with price directly.
Key zones
Cold zone (0-20, blue): the spot price is near or below the median cost basis of the supply - a large share of coins are at or below break-even. Historically the network entered this zone during deep cycle lows (early 2015, late 2018, late 2022), and one-year-forward outcomes from this zone were historically strong. A reading well inside the Cold band describes a structurally depressed regime, far from a heat extreme. Neutral zone (20-80): the price sits within the broad middle of its historical cost-basis range. This is where the market spent most of its time between extremes. No cold or hot extreme is active. Hot zone (80-100, red): the spot price is far above the median cost basis - almost the entire supply is in profit relative to the median. Historically the network entered this zone near cycle highs (late 2013, late 2017, the 2021 highs), and one-year-forward outcomes from this zone were historically weak. A reading deep in the Hot band describes an overheated regime relative to holders' cost.
What to observe
• The temperature at a glance: a single look at the oscillator line tells you whether the market is cold, neutral or hot relative to holders' cost basis. • Direction of travel: a line rising out of the Cold band into Neutral describes a market warming off its lows; a line pushing from Neutral into the Hot band describes one heating toward the upper part of its range. • Cold and hot against the BTC overlay: line up each Cold passage with the white price line - historically these aligned with cycle lows - and each Hot passage with cycle highs. • Time spent in the extremes: the duration inside the Cold and Hot bands has varied by cycle. The duration is contextual, not predictive. • Cross-reference: read alongside the MVRV-based and Pi Cycle cycle charts. The thermometer uses the MEDIAN cost basis (robust to the cheap early-coin tail), so a divergence between it and a mean-based MVRV reading is itself informative about how skewed the cost-basis distribution has become.
Historical context
Cost-basis distributions - the spread of prices at which the circulating supply last moved - are a long-standing on-chain lens. Most cycle valuation tools collapse that distribution to its MEAN (the realized price, behind MVRV). The mean is pulled down by a long tail of very cheap early coins that almost never move, which can blunt the reading near tops. This thermometer instead uses the MEDIAN of the distribution, a robust centre that is far less sensitive to that tail. Measured across 3.5 verified cycles (2013, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2021, 2022), the median-based reading entered its Cold band at every cycle low and its Hot band at every cycle high, with one-year-forward outcomes strong from Cold and weak from Hot. The post-2024 spot-ETF regime has compressed cycle amplitude, so future extremes may register at less extreme readings than historically - the chart provides historical context, not future certainty.
Expert notes
⚠️ Trinity Exclusive Model - The Cost-Basis Cycle Thermometer is a proprietary Trinity Insights construction with no named industry equivalent. Where standard cycle valuation tools collapse the supply cost-basis distribution to its MEAN (the realized price, behind MVRV), this thermometer is built on the MEDIAN of that distribution and expressed as a 0-100 expanding percentile rank. The median is chosen over the mean for robustness: the cheap-genesis tail keeps the lower percentiles of the distribution near zero for years, so the lower edge is unstable, while the median (p50) is reliable from ~2012 onward - which is exactly what makes the reading distinct from mean-based MVRV. The expanding rank uses only data up to each date, so the chart is repaint-free: historical readings are stable as new days are added, and a one-year burn-in is why the series begins around 2013 rather than at genesis. The 0-20 / 80-100 cold/hot thresholds are empirical, calibrated on the rank distribution across 3.5 verified cycles - a balance of sensitivity and specificity, not a theoretical law - and may warrant recalibration as post-ETF cycles accumulate. The exact construction (normalisation, burn-in and threshold calibration) is proprietary Trinity and is not benchmarked against any external source.
Common mistakes to avoid
• Reading it as a buy or sell instruction: it is not. It describes where the price sits relative to holders' cost basis - a reading of regime, nothing more. • Confusing the 0-100 reading with a probability: it is a percentile rank, not a probability of a top or bottom. A reading of 90 means the measure is higher than 90% of all prior history, not a 90% chance of anything. • Treating the cold/hot thresholds as fixed price levels: the thermometer is in rank units, not dollars; the same reading corresponds to very different prices across cycles. • Expecting instant reversals at the extremes: historically the market spent weeks to months inside the Hot and Cold bands before turning; the extremes describe a regime window, not a precise turning point. • Assuming the median equals the realized price: it does not - the median (p50) is robust to the cheap-coin tail that drags the mean down, which is the whole point of this chart. • Ignoring the post-ETF caveat: the calibration rests on pre-ETF cycles; post-ETF amplitude compression may shift where the extremes register.
Programmatic access
REST API
curl -sS \
'https://api.trinityinsights.io/api/v1/cycle-intelligence/cycle-cost-basis-thermometer/history?days=90' \
-H 'X-API-Key: $TRINITY_API_KEY'MCP server
{
"tool": "get_chart_value",
"metric_id": "cycle-cost-basis-thermometer",
"timeframe": "1y"
}Required tier: pro. See the pricing grid for the tier list and the MCP documentation for multi-client configuration.
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Institutional disclaimer
Trinity Insights is an educational and analytical tool. The metric above does not constitute investment advice. Trinity Insights is not a Crypto-Asset Service Provider (CASP) registered under MiCA Regulation (EU) 2023/1114. See the full disclaimer.