Santostasi / Porkopolis model · Not financial advice
A Power Law describes a pattern found throughout nature that repeats consistently at any scale — the same mathematical relationship holds true whether something is tiny or enormous. Discovered by astrophysicist Giovanni Santostasi, the Bitcoin Power Law reveals that Bitcoin's price follows this same predictable pattern — in how cities grow, how social networks spread, and how living organisms grow. On a log-log chart, Bitcoin traces a remarkably straight line across 15+ years of price history. This app uses the Porkopolis coefficients (a=1.6×10⁻¹⁷, b=5.77) — the most widely cited implementation of Santostasi's original research.
R² (R-squared) measures how well a model's predictions match reality — on a scale from 0% to 100%.
Think of it like a weather forecaster. If the forecast said "70°F" and it was actually 71°F every single day, that forecaster would have an R² near 100%. If the forecast was basically random — sometimes 40°F off, sometimes spot on — R² would be near 0%.
For Bitcoin's power law, >95% R² means: 95% of Bitcoin's price variation across 15+ years is explained by just this one simple formula based on time elapsed since genesis. The other 5% is noise — crashes, bubbles, and black swans.
To put that in perspective — most financial models struggle to explain even 30–40% of an asset's price movement. Getting 95% from a single math equation is extraordinary, and is why this model gets serious research attention.
Important caveat: R² only tells you how well the model has fit historical data. It says nothing about whether that fit will continue into the future. Past accuracy is not a guarantee of future accuracy.
Fair value is the price the power law model predicts for any given date. It's calculated using the formula: Price = 1.6×10⁻¹⁷ × (days since Jan 3, 2009)^5.77.
This isn't a prediction of where the price will be — it's the center of the long-run trend channel that Bitcoin has hugged for 15+ years. Think of it as a mathematical "gravitational center" that price orbits around across cycles.
The coefficients come from Porkopolis, fitting a power law regression to Bitcoin's full price history on a log-log scale.
No — and anyone who says otherwise is overselling it. The power law describes a long-run statistical trend, not a trading signal. Bitcoin can and does deviate significantly from fair value for years at a time.
What it does show is that despite extreme volatility, Bitcoin has consistently returned toward this trendline over multi-year periods. The model has an R² above 95% over 15 years — meaning it explains the long-run trajectory unusually well for any financial asset.
Use it as a framework for thinking about where Bitcoin sits in its historical cycle, not as a forecast. The floor (0.42×) and upper (3×) corridors mark the historical extremes — breaching either is rare and temporary.
Bitcoin's code limits the total supply to 21 million coins. To enforce this, the reward paid to miners for creating new blocks is cut in half approximately every 4 years (every 210,000 blocks). This event is called a halving.
There have been four halvings so far: November 2012, July 2016, May 2020, and April 2024. Each cut the new supply entering the market in half — a programmed scarcity shock.
Historically, the 12–18 months following each halving have tended to be bullish periods as reduced supply meets sustained or growing demand. However, each cycle has been different, and past patterns don't guarantee future results. The next (5th) halving is estimated around April 2028.
The floor (0.42× fair value) marks the historical low extreme — Bitcoin has only closed below this level once in its history, briefly during the March 2020 COVID crash. Buying in this zone has historically been associated with exceptional long-term returns.
The upper corridor (3× fair value) marks the historical bull market peak zone. Bitcoin has approached or briefly exceeded this level at major cycle tops (2013, 2017, 2021). Trading in this zone has historically been high-risk for new buyers.
The corridors aren't hard limits — they're empirically derived boundaries. Bitcoin can theoretically exceed them, and the model itself evolves as more price history accumulates.
The calculator is a scenario tool, not a forecast. It shows what a given investment would be worth if Bitcoin is at model fair value in your target year — and the floor/upper range if it's above or below trend.
Set your buy price to what you actually paid (or plan to pay) per BTC. The slider defaults to the current live price and moves on a log scale so the full range from $1K to $500K is usable. Use the preset buttons for quick scenarios, or drag the slider to any custom entry price.
The most useful way to read the output: if the projected value at fair value still represents a meaningful gain for you, and you're comfortable with the floor scenario, that gives you a sense of the risk/reward the model implies. Always size positions you can hold through volatility.