Bitcoin’s performance can vary greatly from month to month, depending on how investors perceive the market. Years of monthly return data available for the cryptocurrency have left investors and analysts trying to determine the cryptocurrency’s next move based on historical performance. As August comes to a close, Bitcoin investors are already looking toward September, hoping that the fresh month will bring better news.

Bitcoin looks set to end August in the red

Despite starting on a high note, Bitcoin price experienced multiple crashes in August as the month wore on. The first week of the month saw a 30% crash in BTC price, which resulted in a market-wide crash that particularly affected altcoins.

Since then, there has been a rally in Bitcoin’s price, but it is far from where it started. This price drop means that August followed the trend of the last two years, ending in the red. So far, according to data According to Coinglass, at the time of writing, Bitcoin’s price has fallen by 6.03% in August.

The results this month are not unusual, as Bitcoin’s price has had more red months than green months since it began. The data starts in 2013 and covers 12 years of monthly returns since then. Of those 12 years, BTC’s price closed in the green on 8 different years, leaving the cryptocurrency with only four green closes in August.

So far, the only times the digital asset has closed August in the green have been during bull runs, with 2017 seeing a 65.32% gain, and 2020 and 2021 seeing positive returns of 2.83% and 13.8%, respectively.

Will September be better?

Historically, September has been even worse for Bitcoin price compared to August. Over the 11-year period, there have been 8 months of negative returns compared to 3 months of positive returns. This resulted in an average monthly return in September of -4.78%.

Given that August was so faint, you might expect September to go in the opposite direction. Not everyone agrees with that viewpoint, though. Cryptocurrency analyst @btc_charlie on X (formerly Twitter) has warned that September may not go as planned.

He points out that the same people who say prices will rise are the same people who missed the bottom and top of Bitcoin. Instead, he recommends that investors look at the negative monthly average returns for September when making their decision.

Featured image created with Dall.E, chart from Tradingview.com