Bitcoin Stock-to-Flow Model Explained: It Says BTC Should Be $811,000 — Bitcoin Is Trading at $76,000
The most famous Bitcoin price model says BTC should trade at $811,000. It is at $76,000 — just 10% of the model's price. Here's what stock-to-flow gets right, where it broke, and what to use instead.
The $811,000 Bitcoin That Never Arrived
Bitcoin's most famous price model says one coin should be worth $811,463 today. Bitcoin is trading at roughly $76,000 — barely 10% of that number. On November 4, 2026, Bitcoin closed at $80,504 while the original stock-to-flow model priced it at $811,463, per an independent audit of every daily close since 2014. The gap is not a rounding error. It is the story of how crypto's most trusted valuation framework broke — and why millions still quote it as if it works.
This is not a hit piece on scarcity. Bitcoin's supply schedule is real and the ratio itself is simple arithmetic. What broke was the leap from "Bitcoin is scarce" to "scarcity alone sets the price." That leap made PlanB, the model's pseudonymous creator, the most followed analyst in crypto — and it is now failing in public, with the numbers to prove it.
What Is the Stock-to-Flow Model?
Stock-to-flow is a ratio borrowed from commodity markets: existing supply (stock) divided by annual new production (flow). The result is the years of current production it would take to reproduce the existing pile. A high ratio means new supply is tiny compared with what exists — the asset is hard to inflate.
Gold's ratio sits near 62, silver's near 22. Bitcoin's was roughly 27 before the 2020 halving, about 56 after it, and roughly 119 to 122 after the April 2024 halving, when the block reward fell to 3.125 BTC. On October 25, 2026, about 20,103,268 BTC had been mined, with roughly 164,250 new coins a year — a ratio of about 122, per Zipmex's worked example. At the 2028 halving it will roughly double again to around 240.
That ratio is plain arithmetic, and nobody disputes it. The controversy starts with the second step: the price model. In March 2019, when Bitcoin cost about $4,000, PlanB published "Modeling Bitcoin's Value with Scarcity," fitting a power-law relationship between the ratio and Bitcoin's market value. The formula was ln(market value) = 3.3 × ln(SF) + 14.6. The fit looked extraordinary — a reported R-squared of 95%. Every halving doubles the ratio, and because of the 3.3 exponent, the model's price jumps roughly tenfold overnight.
For a market desperate for a valuation anchor, it was irresistible: a clean chart, a simple story, and specific numbers. PlanB later extended the framework with S2FX, a cross-asset version that pushed the implied average toward $288,000 for the 2020–2024 cycle. His current stance is an average near $500,000 for the 2024–2028 cycle, inside a $250,000 to $1 million band — a forecast he still repeats. In a September 2025 post he went further, suggesting Bitcoin could keep doubling every year: $160,000 by the end of 2025, $320,000 in 2026 and $640,000 in 2027, as reported by UseTheBitcoin.
Model vs Reality: The Scoreboard
The honest way to judge a model is to freeze its formula on the day it was published and score it against every price since. Two independent audits have done exactly that, and the results are brutal.
| Period | What the model implied | What actually happened |
|---|---|---|
| March 2019 (publication) | Model price $5,633 | BTC closed at $3,987 — 71% of model price |
| 2020–2024 cycle | Average near $55,000 (S2F); $288,000 (S2FX) | Actual cycle average around $34,000; peak ~$69,000 |
| June 2022 crash | Model line far above price | BTC fell below $20,000; Vitalik Buterin called the model out publicly |
| October 6, 2025 peak | PlanB's doubling path implied $160,000 by year-end | BTC peaked near $126,080, then ended 2025 below $90,000 |
| October 25, 2026 | One audit's model value: $468,270 | BTC traded at $80,162 — 17% of that model value |
| November 4, 2026 | Original 2019 formula: $811,463 | BTC closed at $80,504 — 10% of model price |
The PatternPlus audit, which re-runs the original March 2019 formula against every daily close, found Bitcoin has closed within a factor of two of the model's price on only 35% of 2,785 days since publication. Since the April 2024 halving, that figure is 0%: not a single day in this cycle has come within a factor of two, and the average ratio of actual price to model price is just 0.10×. A separate CoinSkeptic audit, updated November 5, 2026, gave the model a blunt verdict — FAILED — finding it within a factor of two on only 45% of days since 2019 and 11% since the 2024 halving.
PlanB himself conceded a "FLOOR MODEL FAIL" when his separate floor-model predictions broke, while insisting the main model stayed intact. The audits suggest otherwise: it has now missed by a factor of roughly ten for months on end.
Where the Model Broke
The first public crack appeared in June 2022. Bitcoin had fallen far below the model's line, and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin wrote that "stock-to-flow is really not looking good now," adding that "financial models that give people a false sense of certainty and predestination that number-will-go-up are harmful." PlanB replied the same day that after a crash "people are looking for scapegoats." The price just kept drifting further from the line.
The 2024 halving then delivered the cleanest test the model could ever get: issuance was cut exactly on schedule, the ratio doubled on cue, and the price peaked near $126,000 in October 2025 before sliding about a third. Scarcity did exactly what the model said it would. The price did the opposite. As one 2026 review put it, stock-to-flow "did not simply miss a target. It missed at the one moment it was designed to nail: the first full cycle after a halving, when programmed scarcity was supposed to do the heavy lifting."
September 2026 brought the most telling evidence against the model from the person with the most to lose by admitting it. With Bitcoin trading below the band miners need to break even, PlanB shifted his emphasis to other indicators — realized price near $53,000, the 155-day moving average near $72,000, and the two-year moving average near $86,000 — arguing a drop below $53,000 was now highly unlikely. Those are reasonable on-chain reference points. They are also an implicit admission that the $500,000 average is no longer the story.
What Most People Get Wrong About Stock-to-Flow
The model survives because five misunderstandings keep it alive. Correcting them is the difference between using scarcity as one input and betting your savings on a single line.
The ratio is not the price forecast. The ratio is arithmetic — mined coins divided by annual issuance. The price model is a separate hypothesis layered on top: that market value rises with the ratio according to one fitted curve. The ratio is a fact. The price line is a guess.
A 95% R-squared proves almost nothing here. Both variables trend upward by construction: the ratio only ever rises, because issuance only ever falls, and Bitcoin's price also rose across the fitted sample. Regressing one rising series against another produces a strong-looking relationship that may contain no causal information at all — the classic spurious-regression trap. Critics showed that an arbitrary counter that simply increments over time produced a similar quality of fit.
The model has no demand term. Scarcity is a supply property. Price is set where supply meets demand. A model that predicts price purely from a supply schedule known to every market participant in advance is implicitly claiming that markets fail to price in public information over multi-year horizons. Yet demand is exactly what collapsed in November 2026: US spot Bitcoin ETFs lost $430.2 million on November 5 alone, the Nasdaq fell 5.5%, and more than $1.2 billion in leveraged positions were liquidated in 24 hours, per CoinGabbar's ETF flow data. Supply did not change that day. Demand did.
Four halvings is not a big sample. The model was fitted to four halving events and then treated as a law. Four data points cannot support a tenfold price projection with confidence. As one 2026 analysis noted, it "described Bitcoin's early history reasonably well and has not usefully predicted anything since it became widely known" — see Onchain Decoded's breakdown.
The model cannot be wrong — and that is the problem. Buterin's deeper criticism was that the model is unfalsifiable: at any price, defenders can claim it refers to cycle averages, or that the move is still coming. A model that cannot fail cannot inform a decision. When the $100,000 and $288,000 calls missed, the goalposts moved to the next cycle. Then they moved again.
For context on the indicators that actually track demand and sentiment, see our guides to the Bitcoin Rainbow Chart and the Crypto Fear and Greed Index — both measure what holders and traders are doing, not just what the issuance schedule says.
What the Model Still Gets Right
Declaring stock-to-flow dead would be as lazy as declaring it infallible. Three things in it remain true.
First, Bitcoin's scarcity is real and strengthening. The ratio really is about 122 today, roughly double gold's 62, and it really will approach 240 after the 2028 halving. No other major asset hardens its supply on a public, unchangeable schedule. That matters over decades, even if it says little about next Tuesday. Our Bitcoin Halving 2028 guide explains the countdown.
Second, the model's failure is itself information. A doubling of scarcity produced a peak of $126,000 rather than $500,000, which tells you demand — not supply — is now the binding constraint on Bitcoin's price. ETFs, rates, and risk appetite decide the cycle; issuance decides the decade.
Third, PlanB's fallback indicators are genuinely worth watching. Realized price near $53,000 marks the average cost basis of all holders — a level that has acted as a floor in past cycles. The 155-day moving average near $72,000 and the two-year moving average near $86,000 frame the range Bitcoin must reclaim to turn bullish again. These are behavioral measures, not calendar math. For how those levels fit the current chart, see our guide to Bitcoin's bull market support band.
Bitcoin at $76,000: Three Scenarios for What Happens Next
Forget the $811,000 line. Here is what the market's own data says about Bitcoin's next move from around $76,000, with the US jobs report due today at 2:30 PM CET and the Fed meeting set for December 8–9.
| Scenario | Trigger | Price levels | Probability read |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bull: reclaim and hold | Jobs data cools rate-hike fears; ETF flows turn positive | $77,900 resistance, then $80,000–$82,000 | Needs a daily close above $77,900 (9-day EMA) |
| Base: range and grind | Jobs data neutral; sellers exhaust near support | $75,300–$77,900 range; $75,625 prior low holds | Most likely near-term while MFI sits at 27.7 (oversold) |
| Bear: support breaks | Hot jobs data; ETF outflows continue; Nasdaq falls again | $75,300 fails, then $72,000, then $70,000 | Risk rises if $75,300 closes below; IBIT outflows already exceed $1B since Oct 30 |
The technical picture is weak but oversold: Bitcoin trades below its nine-day exponential moving average at $77,909, and the Money Flow Index stands at 27.74, below the 30 level associated with oversold conditions. The Fear and Greed Index has fallen to 28 — Fear. Oversold can stay oversold, but it is also where sharp relief rallies start. The single most important number today is the jobs report: 65,000 expected hires, and whether the print revives or buries hopes of easier money.
If you are weighing whether this is a buying opportunity or a falling knife, our seven-test bear market check and the data on Bitcoin's supposed deaths are the right companions to this article. And if you are new to holding Bitcoin yourself rather than an ETF, start with the best crypto wallets of 2026.
What to Use Instead of Stock-to-Flow
The post-S2F shelf of models is crowded, and none of them is a crystal ball either — but each measures something real, and together they beat a single line.
The power law. This model fits Bitcoin's price to a long-term trend line on a log-log chart and currently implies roughly $100,000 by 2028 at the latest. It is slower, less exciting, and has survived contact with reality better than S2F — though like any trend model it assumes the trend continues.
MVRV Z-Score. This compares market value with realized value — what holders collectively paid. Because it responds to real behavior rather than a calendar, it has flagged tops and bottoms more reliably than issuance-based models. When MVRV is low, holders are near breakeven; when it is high, euphoria is doing the pricing.
The Rainbow Chart. A logarithmic regression with colored bands from "basically a fire sale" to "maximum bubble territory." It has never been decisively broken since 2013, though its bands are wide enough to forgive almost anything — useful as a sentiment gauge, useless as a price target.
Realized price and moving averages. Realized price near $53,000 is the market's average cost basis. The 200-week moving average has marked cycle bottoms for a decade. These are the levels professional desks actually watch, because they describe where holders feel pain.
Demand data. ETF flows, exchange balances, and funding rates measure the money actually moving. On November 5, Fidelity's FBTC alone lost $199.9 million and BlackRock's IBIT $105 million, in a $430.2 million day of spot Bitcoin ETF outflows. No supply model would have seen that coming. Watch the flows.
The Verdict: Should You Trust Stock-to-Flow With Your Money?
Before letting any single model influence a buy or sell decision, run this checklist:
- Never let one model decide a trade. If stock-to-flow is your only reason to buy, you do not have a thesis — you have a poster.
- Check the model's live error before trusting it. Right now the original formula is off by roughly 10×. Any model that wrong, for that long, has lost its vote.
- Separate the ratio from the price claim. Bitcoin's rising scarcity is a genuine long-term tailwind. It is not a price target, a timeline, or a promise.
- Weight demand over supply in the short term. ETF flows, rates, and equity markets move Bitcoin week to week; halvings move it cycle to cycle.
- Watch realized price ($53,000) and the 200-week average as your floor markers, and $77,900 and $80,000 as the levels that must be reclaimed for the trend to turn.
- Remember the model's own author has moved on. When PlanB talks about realized price and moving averages instead of $500,000, follow his indicators, not his old chart.
Stock-to-flow earned its fame honestly: for Bitcoin's first decade, scarcity and price really did move together. But fame froze it. The market changed — ETFs, institutions, rate cycles, and a Nasdaq correlation the 2019 model never imagined — while the formula stayed the same. A model that cannot update is a monument, not a tool.
The question for Bitcoin at $76,000 is not whether scarcity will matter eventually. It will. The question is whether demand returns before the next leg down — and no line drawn from a 2019 regression can answer that. Watch the jobs report, watch the ETF flows, watch $75,300.
FAQs
What is the Bitcoin stock-to-flow model?
Stock-to-flow is a scarcity ratio: existing supply divided by annual new production. The price model, published by the pseudonymous analyst PlanB in March 2019, fits a power-law relationship between that ratio and Bitcoin's market value: ln(market value) = 3.3 × ln(SF) + 14.6. It predicted much higher prices than Bitcoin has achieved since 2021.
What does the stock-to-flow model say Bitcoin should be worth now?
Depending on the implementation, roughly $468,000 to $811,000. The original 2019 formula priced Bitcoin at $811,463 on November 4, 2026, when Bitcoin closed at $80,504 — about 10% of the model's price. PlanB's own stance is a $500,000 average for the 2024–2028 cycle, inside a $250,000 to $1 million band.
Why did the stock-to-flow model fail?
It has no demand term, so it cannot account for ETF outflows, rate hikes, or equity sell-offs. Its 95% R-squared was inflated by spurious regression — both the ratio and the price trended upward in the fitted sample. It was fitted to only four halvings, and its author has shifted to other indicators such as realized price near $53,000. Audits find it within a factor of two of the real price on only 11% of days since the 2024 halving.
Is Bitcoin's stock-to-flow ratio still rising?
Yes. The ratio is about 122 today — roughly double gold's 62 — and it will roughly double again to around 240 after the 2028 halving. The ratio is simple arithmetic and is not in dispute; only the price forecast built on top of it has failed.
What models do analysts use instead of stock-to-flow?
The power law, MVRV Z-Score, the Rainbow Chart, realized price, and the 200-week moving average are the most cited alternatives. Each measures something real — trend, holder cost basis, or sentiment — and professionals combine several rather than trusting one. Demand data such as ETF flows matters most short-term.
Is Bitcoin a good buy at $76,000?
No model can answer that, and this article is not financial advice. The facts: Bitcoin is about 40% below its $126,080 all-time high, oversold by momentum measures, and holding above realized price near $53,000 — but it is also below its 9-day moving average, facing $430 million in daily ETF outflows, and waiting on the jobs report and the Fed's December meeting. Watch $75,300 support and $77,900 resistance.
Conclusion
Stock-to-flow was the right model for Bitcoin's childhood and the wrong model for its adulthood. It captured a real truth — programmed scarcity matters — and stretched it into a false certainty, a single line that promised $500,000 and delivered a 90% miss. The audits are unambiguous: within a factor of two on 0% of days since the 2024 halving, and a model price of $811,463 against a real price of $76,000.
What survives is the scarcity itself. Every halving still tightens supply, the 2028 cut will still double the ratio toward 240, and long-term holders still have realized price near $53,000 as their line in the sand. Trade the market you have — jobs data, ETF flows, $75,300 support — not the model you wish you had.
