Buying bitcoin below its 200-week average has historically delivered over 100% in median returns, Kraken says

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• Bitcoin's brief dips below its 200-week average have historically delivered median returns in excess of 100% over a year, according to Kraken.
• The pain of holding through these periods has been minimal.

Bitcoin BTC$64,051.63 has recently been flirting with a level that has historically proved a near-perfect entry point for bulls, generating handsome returns, crypto exchange Kraken's Chief Economist Thomas Perfumo told CoinDesk.

That level is the 200-week simple moving average (SMA), which represents the token's average price over that period, providing traders with a clear glimpse of the long-term trend while cutting through day-to-day noise.

Twice in the past two weeks, BTC dipped briefly below its 200-week SMA before climbing back above it by the end of each week. As of writing, bitcoin is trading at $63,900, just above the 200-week SMA of $62,358.

That's notable because, as per Perfumo, closes below this level have been rare, occurring on only about 10% of trading days since mid-2017, and have historically marked unusually attractive entry points for buyers.

"Historically, buyers at this level have gone on to see median returns north of 113% over the following year and 313% over two years," Perfumo said in an email.

Median here means that if you lined up every single time someone bought BTC below the 200-week SMA and ranked their returns from worst to best, then 113% is the return that sits right in the middle. It also means half of those buyers enjoyed higher returns than that while the rest ended with less. That's different from a simple average return, which can get skewed by one or two big outliers, or extraordinary gains.

The story gets even more positive. Not only has buying below the 200-week average produced triple-digit gains over one- and two-year periods, but the pain of holding through that period has been limited.

"For those who accumulated below the 200-week MA, the median time to break even on their investment has been just two days, while the median maximum drawdown over the subsequent year has been only 9%," Perfumo noted.

However, he was careful to caveat the data, stressing that "past performance is no guarantee of future results. But the historical record makes a clear case: at these levels, bitcoin has tended to offer immense value."