CryptoWeeklies / Glossary
What is the 200-week moving average?
The 200-week moving average is the average closing price over the last 200 weeks — roughly four years. It is the slowest line on most of these charts, and the one that moves least.
Why four years
Four years is close to the historical spacing of Bitcoin's major cycles, so a 200-week window smooths through an entire boom and bust and leaves a line that mostly ignores short-term noise. In past cycles, price has spent very little time below it, and the periods it did were near major lows.
That is the whole reason the level gets watched. It is not a rule — it is an observation about a small number of past cycles.
How the risk score uses it
The composite risk pages combine several horizons — typically a 20-week, a 100-week and a 200-week average — and measure how far price has stretched above them. When price is far above all three, the score is high. When price is near or below the 200-week line, the score is near its floor.
What it cannot tell you
A moving average is arithmetic on past prices. It has no view on what happens next. "Price has always bounced here" is a statement about four or five events, which is not enough to be confident about the next one — and an asset can fall below its 200-week average and stay there.
Related: TWAP, which never drops old data, and Gravity Risk.