When bitcoin falls, opinions multiply and it's hard to know whom to listen to. There's one group, however, that doesn't talk: it acts. And what it does is recorded, public and free.
In any market there are those who sell because they want to and those who sell because they have a bill to pay. The latter don't choose the moment, and that's why they're the only ones whose behaviour can be anticipated a little. In bitcoin they're the miners — and unlike almost every other market, here they can be counted.
Mining is putting in electricity and getting out bitcoins. The margin is the difference, and when the price falls far enough, that margin flips: every block they mine costs them money. So they switch off.
Two things in the protocol itself push right at that moment:
Every 210,000 blocks, what the network pays for mining one is cut in half. The electricity bill doesn't drop that night. Whoever was just breaking even starts losing.
Difficulty readjusts every 2,016 blocks so they keep coming out every ten minutes. When a few switch off, those who remain take up to two weeks to mine more cheaply. In that window, whoever holds on suffers too.
That's why capitulations aren't a trickle: they come in waves. Several leave at once, and the network's total power drops all of a sudden.
The network's power (hash rate) is public data, day by day. By comparing its 30-day average with the 60-day one you can see when things turn: if the short one sinks below the long one, miners are switching off. When it rises again, those who remain have held on. That's the indicator called the hash ribbon.
We measured it over 4,963 days, from January 2013 to August 2026: 19 waves of capitulation, counting each complete stretch as one. One every eight-plus months. And there's one open: it started on 8 June 2026 and as of 3 August it still hadn't closed.
Counting this has a trap and we fell into it: if you count every single crossing of the averages instead of every stretch, you get 35 instead of 19, and it looks as if the indicator fires every other day. They're crossings of the same episode, not different episodes.
What it tells you: that the forced supply is gone. The miner sells no matter what to pay for electricity; the one who switches off stops selling. And whoever keeps mining does so with lower costs, that is, without that hurry. It's information about who is selling and why, which is different from everything else people look at.
What it doesn't tell you: when, how much, or that it's the bottom. Nineteen times in thirteen years is one every eight months, and market bottoms don't come every eight months.
We measured it two ways, because just one is misleading.
Against buying on any other day in those thirteen years: the answer is it depends. If a wave is defined as a minimum of 14 days, there's no difference; if it's defined as 30, the difference is large.
Against buying during the fall itself —against someone who was already buying in the year before each capitulation— it does better: it wins in 9 of 17 cases at three months and in 11 of 16 at six. Little more than a coin toss, but ahead.
We chose that limit ourselves. And changing it changes the answer, which is the same as saying the answer isn't in the data: it's in the decision we made when measuring it.
With fifteen cases and a limit that decides the result, the honest thing is to say that it can't be known. Neither that it works nor that it doesn't. We publish the full numbers in case anyone wants to redo them, and meanwhile this doesn't go into our trading.
This isn't something for professionals with expensive terminals. The network's power is public data: search for bitcoin hash rate on any website that publishes it, look at the 30- and 60-day averages, and see whether the short one is below the long one. That's it. That's the whole indicator.
And that's the part of this report we care about most: that you come away able to check it yourself without asking anyone's permission. What you can't check on your own, you shouldn't believe — and that includes us.
And what's really worth taking away isn't the chart, but the question behind it. When something falls, almost everyone asks what the market thinks. The useful question is a different one: who is selling because they have no other choice, and how long will they be able to keep doing it?
That applies to bitcoin and it applies outside bitcoin. The producer with a bill hanging over them exists in almost every market —the oil company that has to keep pumping, the farmer who has to sell the harvest, the company that has to refinance— and it's rarely looked at. An opinion changes mood. A bill doesn't.
That you now know how to look at something you couldn't see before. Next time bitcoin falls and social media fills with people sure of everything, you can go and see whether miners are switching off. Five minutes, and you'll know something most of the people giving opinions haven't looked at.
A better question than the one you came with. Stop asking what the market thinks —nobody knows that— and ask who is selling because they have no other choice, and how long they can hold out. That question does have an answer, and it's almost always in plain sight.
And the uncomfortable part, which we also tell you: this isn't a buy button. Nineteen times in thirteen years don't mark any bottom, and compared with buying without looking at it we haven't been able to show that it improves anything. If we sold you certainties we don't have, the day it fails —and it will— you'd be left with the loss and we'd be left with your money. That's not how we work.
If you want to keep pulling the thread
We have another report where we measure the time distances between the milestones of bitcoin's three complete cycles. It's with the rest at sophronepsis.com/informes.html
And if you want to learn to look at this on your own, the six-day walkthrough is at app.sophronepsis.com/empieza.
A report is a snapshot of one day. Inside the platform the measurements are redone when new data arrives —that open wave will close at some point and you'll know—, every strategy comes with its test alongside it, and the mentor answers whatever you ask, at any hour. sophronepsis.com/mentoria.html
Measured over 4,963 days of public bitcoin network and price data, from 1 January 2013 to 3 August 2026. The full checks, with their parameters and their results, are published alongside the report. Educational content, not financial advice. We don't sell signals or manage third-party capital. Familia FVR · Sophronepsis.