Bitcoin Summer 2025: Don’t Miss Out

Author: Bitcoin Magazine Pro; Compiler: Plain Language Blockchain

After a turbulent start to 2025, Bitcoin has reignited its upward momentum, breaking through six figures again and reminding investors why they can persevere through volatility. However, as momentum returns, a familiar saying has resurfaced: "Sell in May, stay on the sidelines." This investment adage is traditionally associated with the stock market, but it is now being mentioned in the Bitcoin community as well. So, does this strategy hold up in the current market? Let's dig into the data on seasonal trends, historical performance, and on-chain indicators to determine whether it is a wise strategy to exit now, or you may miss the biggest opportunity of this cycle.

Revisiting the "Sell in May, Stay on the Sidelines" Thesis

This investment strategy originated from traditional finance and recommends exiting the market in May and returning in November, as summer months have generally had weaker historical performance. The Bitcoin seasonality chart does show that summer months (particularly June-September) tend to be underperforming. But the broader performance data reveals a more nuanced story, especially in the Bitcoin market.

Historically, summer months have had lower returns on average

When applying this strategy to Bitcoin, the primary basis for this is 2014, 2018, and 2022, years when Bitcoin experienced deep, sustained bear markets. In these years, summer month returns have undoubtedly underperformed. But what if we remove these bear years from the dataset?

Performance after removing bear years

When bear years are removed, Bitcoin's average return in every month (June to September inclusive) turns positive. Even September, Bitcoin's worst month in history, saw a slight profit of +0.37%. October's average return was as high as 26%, historically one of Bitcoin's best performing months.

Excluding bear years, average returns were positive in every month

This reversal completely overturns the argument for summer exits. The strategy only seems reasonable when subject to deep bear cycles. In bull or neutral years, summer has significant upside potential.

The True Cost of Exiting in May

The compound return analysis vividly illustrates this point. Based on historical monthly performance, if you had invested $100 starting in 2012 and held on (including the summer), your compounded return would be over $2 billion today.

In terms of compound returns, the "May exit" strategy performed far worse than holding on

But if you exited every May and avoided June to October, your final capital would be only $112 million, a return almost 18 times lower. Even if you only avoid June to September and return in October, the return will still drop sharply to $536 million, just one-quarter of the gains from continued holding. Missing the summer means missing the exponential effect of Bitcoin's compound growth.

Will this summer be different?

From the perspective of on-chain indicators, especially the MVRV Z-score, Bitcoin's structure remains healthy and is far from the typical cycle top level. The current market structure shows that Bitcoin still has considerable room to rise. If the rhythm of this cycle is similar to the previous bull market, the real top may not appear until October or later.

Bitcoin’s current MVRV Z-score suggests the cycle is far from peaking

Shunning positions now based on expectations of “typical” seasonal weakness is not only contrary to the data, but could also result in investors being squeezed out of the market during the most explosive phase of the cycle in 2025.

Conclusion

While seasonal patterns should not be completely ignored, they must be viewed in context, especially for a macro-driven asset like Bitcoin. Bull cycles, liquidity flows, global economic conditions and investor behavior are far more important than months on the calendar.

Bitcoin cycles are primarily driven by supply and demand, and now that summer 2025 is likely to be a Bitcoin mania, historical patterns, momentum and market structure dynamics all point to strong upside potential in the fourth quarter. Investors should not exit based on seasonal cliches, but should pay close attention to on-chain and macro indicators and focus on long-term positioning.