How much bitcoin gained or lost in every calendar month since December 2018, from real daily closes on the Bybit exchange. Switch to Ethereum, XRP, Solana, Dogecoin, Cardano or Avalanche, then pick the months to hold and see what that plan did after trading costs.
| Year | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | -10.1% | -14.9% | +1.9% | +11.8% | -3.5% | -20.4% | +7.3% | +25.0% | +7.0%* | - | - | - | -4.0%* |
| 2025 | +9.6% | -17.7% | -2.1% | +14.1% | +11.1% | +2.4% | +8.0% | -6.5% | +5.4% | -3.9% | -17.5% | -3.1% | -6.3% |
| 2024 | +0.6% | +44.0% | +16.6% | -15.1% | +11.3% | -7.1% | +3.0% | -8.8% | +7.3% | +11.0% | +37.5% | -3.3% | +120.7% |
| 2023 | +40.0% | 0.0% | +23.0% | +2.7% | -6.9% | +11.9% | -4.1% | -11.3% | +4.0% | +28.7% | +8.8% | +12.1% | +155.9% |
| 2022 | -16.7% | +12.3% | +5.4% | -17.3% | -15.6% | -37.3% | +17.0% | -14.0% | -3.1% | +5.5% | -16.3% | -3.6% | -64.2% |
| 2021 | +14.4% | +36.5% | +30.0% | -1.8% | -35.5% | -6.0% | +18.3% | +13.8% | -7.2% | +40.2% | -7.2% | -18.9% | +59.5% |
| 2020 | +30.4% | -8.7% | -24.7% | +34.3% | +9.4% | -3.3% | +24.4% | +2.6% | -7.6% | +28.2% | +42.9% | +46.7% | +303.9% |
| 2019 | -7.6% | +11.0% | +8.0% | +28.7% | +62.5% | +25.9% | -6.3% | -4.8% | -13.6% | +10.4% | -17.5% | -5.1% | +94.2% |
| 2018 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | -7.2% | - |
| Average | +7.6% | +7.8% | +7.3% | +7.2% | +4.1% | -4.2% | +8.5% | -0.5% | -2.1% | +17.1% | +4.4% | +2.2% | |
| Median | +5.1% | +5.5% | +6.7% | +7.3% | +2.9% | -4.6% | +7.7% | -5.6% | -3.1% | +11.0% | -7.2% | -3.4% | |
| Up | 5 of 8 | 4 of 8 | 6 of 8 | 5 of 8 | 4 of 8 | 3 of 8 | 6 of 8 | 3 of 8 | 3 of 7 | 6 of 7 | 3 of 7 | 2 of 8 |
Bitcoin: 93 complete months from December 2018 to August 2026. 50 ended higher (53.8%). Best month: May 2019, +62.5%. Worst: June 2022, -37.3%. *September 2026 and the 2026 year column run to September 25, 2026, the last day in the data, and are left out of the averages and the test.
Tap a month to switch it on or off. The test starts with $10,000 and buys and sells at month-end closes.
Loading real prices...
Data: real Bybit BTCUSD inverse perpetual daily closes (UTC), November 14, 2018 to September 25, 2026, fetched 2026-09-26 with the open-source ccxt library. Quoted in US dollars.
Each cell is one calendar month: the last daily close of that month compared with the last daily close of the month before. Green cells are gains, red cells are losses, and a stronger color means a bigger move. The last column is the calendar-year return, from one December 31 close to the next. The three rows at the bottom sum up each calendar month across the years: the average, the median and how many of those months ended higher. The current month and year run only to the last day in the data, so they carry an asterisk and stay out of the summary rows.
Below the table, switch months on or off to hold the coin only in the months you pick. The test starts with $10,000, buys and sells at month-end closes, charges a 0.1% fee plus 0.05% slippage on every buy and sell and compares the result with buying once and holding.
| Month | Average | Median | Up | Best | Worst |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | +7.6% | +5.1% | 5 of 8 | +40.0% (2023) | -16.7% (2022) |
| February | +7.8% | +5.5% | 4 of 8 | +44.0% (2024) | -17.7% (2025) |
| March | +7.3% | +6.7% | 6 of 8 | +30.0% (2021) | -24.7% (2020) |
| April | +7.2% | +7.3% | 5 of 8 | +34.3% (2020) | -17.3% (2022) |
| May | +4.1% | +2.9% | 4 of 8 | +62.5% (2019) | -35.5% (2021) |
| June | -4.2% | -4.6% | 3 of 8 | +25.9% (2019) | -37.3% (2022) |
| July | +8.5% | +7.7% | 6 of 8 | +24.4% (2020) | -6.3% (2019) |
| August | -0.5% | -5.6% | 3 of 8 | +25.0% (2026) | -14.0% (2022) |
| September | -2.1% | -3.1% | 3 of 7 | +7.3% (2024) | -13.6% (2019) |
| October | +17.1% | +11.0% | 6 of 7 | +40.2% (2021) | -3.9% (2025) |
| November | +4.4% | -7.2% | 3 of 7 | +42.9% (2020) | -17.5% (2025) |
| December | +2.2% | -3.4% | 2 of 8 | +46.7% (2020) | -18.9% (2021) |
Over 93 complete months, bitcoin ended 50 of them higher, 53.8%. The best month in this data was May 2019 at +62.5% and the worst was June 2022 at -37.3%. For bitcoin, every calendar month has had at least one gain and at least one loss. Averages can mislead because each month has only seven or eight results: November averaged +4.4% while its median was -7.2%. Two strong Novembers, +42.9% in 2020 and +37.5% in 2024, lifted the average, while four of the seven ended lower.
It is easy to make a month-picking plan look brilliant. Holding bitcoin only in the six months with the highest average in the table, January, February, March, April, July and October, turned $10,000 into $307,873 from December 2018 to August 2026, against $196,897 for buy and hold. But those months were chosen by looking at the same results they are scored on.
A fairer test picks the months on one period and checks them on the next. The six best months by average from December 2018 to December 2022 were January, February, April, May, July and October. Holding bitcoin only in those months from January 2023 to August 2026 turned $10,000 into $25,986, while buy and hold over the same stretch reached $47,355. In the years they were picked from, the same months had beaten holding $78,064 to $41,454. Ethereum showed the same pattern: its six best months up to 2022 lost to holding from 2023 on, $18,181 against $20,562.
For a different angle on timing, the time the market game lets you switch between a hidden coin and cash day by day, and the trading strategy game runs fixed rules over a real year. The bitcoin halving chart and the bitcoin rainbow chart show the same bitcoin history in other ways.
Educational, not financial advice. Past monthly returns do not predict future ones. The test shows what a fixed rule did on past prices and does not recommend buying or selling in any month.
The last daily close of the month divided by the last daily close of the month before, minus one. A daily close is the last traded price of each UTC day on Bybit. The year column works the same way, from one December 31 close to the next.
In this data, May 2019, when bitcoin rose 62.5%. The worst complete month was June 2022 at -37.3%. The data starts in November 2018, so earlier months are not included.
Not one this data can support. Every calendar month has had both gains and losses for bitcoin, and the months with the best record up to 2022 did worse than buy and hold from 2023 on. The test on this page lets you check any set of months yourself.
Another site may use a different exchange, a different time for the daily close, or the first price of the month instead of the previous month's last close. A small difference in a closing price changes a monthly return slightly.
Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP from Bybit's inverse perpetual contracts, and Solana, Dogecoin, Cardano and Avalanche from Bybit's spot market. Each starts with its first full month of data on Bybit, from December 2018 for Bitcoin to December 2021 for Avalanche.