Bitcoin's strongest seasonal month arrives late in the halving cycle

October has been bitcoin's best month in our data. The current cycle is past the window where previous cycles peaked.

Published October 6, 2026 in the daily brief · Markets: Bitcoin, Ether

What happened

Bitcoin traded at $86,281.11 and Ether at $2,715.95 on the morning of October 6. US spot bitcoin ETFs saw net outflows of $89.8M on October 5 after inflows of $241M in the week to October 2 and $2.39B in the week to September 25. The SEC proposed a 760-page crypto custody rule on October 1 with a 60-day comment period.

• Bitcoin traded at $86,281.11 and Ether at $2,715.95 on the morning of October 6. Source: Fortune, Oct 6
• US spot bitcoin ETFs saw net outflows of $89.8M on October 5, after net inflows of $241M in the week to October 2 and $2.39B in the week to September 25. Source: The Crypto Times, Oct 6
• On October 1 the SEC proposed a 760-page crypto custody rule with a 60-day comment period. Source: CoinDesk, Oct 1

Why it matters

ETF flows have become the clearest daily read on institutional demand. A custody framework from the SEC would lower one of the remaining barriers for banks and advisers, though the comment period means no rule takes effect this year.

What history shows

In our data bitcoin is -31.23% below its all-time high and -30.54% over a year, but +34.05% over three months.

The last halving was 899 days ago. In the two previous cycles in our data, bitcoin peaked 525 and 546 days after the halving; in this cycle the high so far came 534 days after it.

Seasonal backdrop

October is bitcoin's strongest month in our data, averaging +16.63% with gains in 75% of 12 years. The sample is short, so one or two extreme years carry a lot of weight.

Markets in this insight

Latest close (October 6, 2026). The figures in the text above are as of publication.

Scenarios

Scenarios describe plausible paths and the signs that would point to each. They are not forecasts, and we do not assign them probabilities. Where a scenario names a market and a direction, our scorecard checks it after the horizon ends.

What to watch

• Daily spot ETF flows
• SEC custody rule comments
• October 28: Fed decision

How this was made: facts were collected and checked against the cited pages; every historical figure is computed by our code from Yahoo Finance and FRED price history and inserted automatically, as of the close of October 5, 2026. The explanation was written by our editors. Editorial policy.