Get to know all about the Bitcoin Stock to Flow Model of valuing and predicting the price of Bitcoin along with its theory and applications in simple terms:
Stock to Flow is a model used to price commodities by assessing their relative abundance by comparing their total existing supply (stock) and their new supply created each year (flow). A commodity is deemed as getting scarcer if the stock-to-flow ratio (its current supply dividend by its yearly supply) is increasing and hence its price tends to increase.
The ratio itself gives the number of years it would take to produce the equivalent of the current total supply if the asset cannot be destroyed.
Table of Contents:
- Bitcoin Stock to Flow (S2F) Model – Detailed Study
- How Stock-to-Flow Model Works on Bitcoin
- How to Invest in Cryptocurrencies Using the Stock to Flow Model
- Why 463 Days Time Span for S2F Calculation
- Benefits of the Stock 2 Flow
- How Accurate is Stock to Flow Model in Valuing the Price of BTC
- Short-Comings of the S2F Model for Bitcoin Price Valuation
- Plan B Bitcoin FAQs
- 1. Which stocks are most correlated to Bitcoin?
- 2. Is Bitcoin stock-to-flow broken?
- 3. Is Bitcoin a good buy right now?
- 4. Can I make money investing $100 in Bitcoin?
- 5. What is the next cryptocurrency to boom?
- 6. What does stock-to-flow mean?
- 7. Is Bitcoin stock-to-flow accurate?
- 8. Why is the PlanB stock-to-flow Bitcoin evaluation model wrong?
- 9. Is higher stock-to-flow better?
- 10. Does stock-to-flow work for Ethereum?
- Conclusion
Bitcoin Stock to Flow (S2F) Model – Detailed Study
The model has been applied to Bitcoin and is mainly championed by PlanB although it has traditionally been applied to many other commodities. This tutorial looks at the fundamentals of this theory, how it works, its application to Bitcoin, and how the stock-to-flow Bitcoin model is used to value Bitcoin and predict its price.
Market Trends:
- BTC price predictions based on the Stock-to-flow model have defied actual BTC prices in 2024 by more than 500% as seen in the below chart.
- Bitcoin’s stock-to-flow ratio should double every time its halving occurs, which means the amount is released to miners per block for validating that block. It is currently a reward of 6.35 Bitcoins per block and will be 3.125 Bitcoins per block in around 2024.
- The consistent rise in the stock-to-flow ratio over the years has coincided with a rise in the price of Bitcoin over time.
Plan B stock to flow chart for BTC price predictions versus actual real prices over the years:
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Expert Advice: The Bitcoin stock-to-flow model is a general method of Bitcoin price prediction and valuation and a trader/investor would require using it alongside other more precise prediction models. This is because it falls short of considering just supply and demand as determinants of Bitcoin value and price, yet several other factors affect Bitcoin pricing.
How Stock-to-Flow Model Works on Bitcoin
Bitcoin Money Supply Curve:
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#1) Mining is the only way a new Bitcoin can be manufactured or created. Miners who are ideally running Bitcoin software copies each to support the network to make it more decentralized and secure – are rewarded for their activities such as verifying new transactions. Security and safety are infused into this process of verification.
#2) Rewards are calculated per block mined and a verified block’s reward is given to the miner who finds it or verifies it. Miners compete to verify transactions bundled into a block that, when verified as secure and meeting blockchain requirements, is added to the existing longest chain.
This verification is done with mining machines, specialized devices that basically make multiples of calculations to try and find the correct special number that (meets certain specifications and) satisfactorily completes the equation that also includes the combination of in-putted transactional information and the predetermined blockchain block headers.
The output must meet certain specifications too.
The mining calculations are timed such that the block takes 10 minutes to mine. The difficulty of mining adjusts from time to time to allow for this, all depending on how many people are competing to mine. So it will be more difficult to create a Bitcoin if more people are involved and vice versa but the difficulty change ensures that the creation always takes 10 minutes.
#3) Rewards are predetermined, currently at 6.25 Bitcoins per mined block, but halves after every 4 years. Miners later sell these rewards to secondary markets and the Bitcoins enter circulation. The supply aspect is also reflected in the fact that there are limited Bitcoins to create (21 million).
#4) Ideally, a lesser number of Bitcoins, therefore, enter circulation over time but still, the circulation amount keeps increasing. Scarcity is meant to rise if demand rises.
#5) Currently, about 328, 500 Bitcoins are produced yearly. The stock is currently at 19,192,293 and hence the S2F ratio is 19,192,293/328,500 = 58.42 meaning it would take those years to mine the current supply. But halving would affect that.
#6) However, the S2F model ratio is not a correct absolute value but a highly relative one. This is because Bitcoin or other cryptos cannot be converted into something else like gold and silver. Hence, every coin would act as a potential supply because however held, it can be sold at any time.
How to Invest in Cryptocurrencies Using the Stock to Flow Model
Step #1: Determine scarcity or the relevant abundance of the asset in the future or currently by calculating its current stock-to-flow ratio. The value is achieved by dividing the total supply (currently available in the market) dividend by the yearly supply (production).
Step #2: Estimate the rate potential – the ratio in crypto is usually reduced due to manual and auto burns, halving, etc. A rise in ratio means a potential increase in demand. A lower ratio tells you more production is happening now relative to the total supply which signifies a potential decrease in demand.
Step #3: Buy the crypto based on your estimates. S2F is a long-term investment guide so there may not be spontaneous entry points where you buy and sell, thus it is best used alongside other technical analyses to determine those points at which you buy/sell the assets prudently.
However, continuous analyses of S2F ratios may also unravel positions at which the ratio is defied or strengthened, hence determining your direction for investment.
Why 463 Days Time Span for S2F Calculation
Bitcoin uses the 463-day time span in calculating stock-to-flow. This means the model chart spans 463 days. First of all, Bitcoin undergoes halving every 4 years when the rewards issued to miners per block are reduced by half.
Each cycle happens after 210,000 blocks are mined with each taking 10 minutes to produce. Each cycle has three phases of a price correction – bull run, correction, and mean reversion or a return to the average price.
The 463 days are arrived at by dividing the blocks per halving cycle (210,000) by three (the above phases) and dividing the result by the total blocks produced per day. Preston Pysh – a Central Bank and Stock researcher – proposed the calculation to increase sample size and smooth out the price model. Otherwise, the model does not produce a smooth curve.
Benefits of the Stock 2 Flow
- Employs token economics to infer the price moves of an asset.
- Long-term price estimates.
- Has largely aligned to BTC price forecasts during halving events.
- It reveals the real price elasticity of supply for a given asset. It will show if and how a change in supply would affect the price of an asset.
- It uses supply as the only indicator in estimating price therefore pretty very simple and fast for anyone to use.
How Accurate is Stock to Flow Model in Valuing the Price of BTC
- Proponents of this model say that it has been quite successful in predicting the price of Bitcoin over the years, especially between 2015 and late 2023. Its accuracy in valuing the price of Bitcoin, they claim, has led to its popularity. This has also been proved by experts such as in the chart below.
- However, the price has diverged from the model in 2011 and 2013 and after November 2023. It appears to have failed to predict prices at the time of the crypto winter of 2023. For instance, it predicted the price of reaching $100,000 in 2024 which couldn’t be further from the truth with the crypto tumbling to below $20,000.
Short-Comings of the S2F Model for Bitcoin Price Valuation
Bitcoin’s stock-to-flow ratio will not exceed that of Gold by 2025:
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#1) The model does not take into consideration cryptocurrency volatility or Bitcoin’s vulnerability to price swings.
#2) The model assumes that supply is the sole driver of Bitcoin prices when many other (short-term and long-term) factors have played a role. Examples include the sharp rise of financial asset values for all assets in 2023 which was caused by the excessive creation of money.
This has also caused a pump in Bitcoin prices. In addition, the stimulus introduced to counter COVID-19 effects also had an impact. The model ignores black swans or economic unforeseen events that influence prices.
#3) While it is true that Bitcoin price mainly relies on scarcity given that its relative supply is falling from time to time (because it halves every four years) while demand tends to grow from time to time, its demand is not a constant growth and can fall when affected by other factors.
#4) The price of Bitcoin primarily relies on demand and supply but other factors play a key role as well, including investor sentiments, competing cryptocurrencies, and assets, regulations that affect how mainstream regulated institutions and the public invest in volatile assets, media, and news, increase in the number of nodes and holders or other people using Bitcoin for instance for payment services, cost of mining, etc.
#5) Over the years, Bitcoin has witnessed huge publicity, increased media coverage, and thus increased interest from public and institutional investors. Demand has mainly been fueled by institutional investments, especially since 2017.
It has also become popular in high-inflation countries. It has also become increasingly popular for moving money across borders given how slow and expensive mainstream alternatives are. These short-term factors have also contributed to price movements but have not been factored into the S2F model.
Plan B depicts the Gold stock 2 flow ratio as a constant at 62, silver at 22, and that of Bitcoin rising over the past 10 years:
However, in reality, the stock 2 flow ratio for gold has gone as low as 45 in 1945 and as high as 90 in 1920 and is by no means constant.
#6) Despite the short-term uplift in price and trading volumes, Bitcoin is also still very unpopular with the masses given the low daily volumes it trades when compared to other mainstream assets and currencies.
The price, given the low market share, is also affected by whales who hold chunks of Bitcoins through price manipulations. The price also alternates between periods of booms and bursts.
#7) Supply, and thus the price, is also affected by the marginal cost of production of Bitcoin. The latter is a factor of the cost of electricity, mining equipment, and other indirect effects such as the number of people mining it at a given time which directly influences the mining difficulty.
#8) Thousands of other cryptocurrencies have also come up, many of which are marketed as better than Bitcoin in terms of utility, transaction confirmation times, block size, and other aspects. It has been observed that many crypto investors keep shifting interests from Bitcoin to other cryptos and vice versa.
Examples of cryptos that have directly eaten into Bitcoin’s popularity, demand, and market share include Ethereum, even though it has also attracted billions of other investments through DeFi and smart contracts, and stablecoins Tether and USDCoin which users use to stabilize their value against volatility.
#9) Lack of regulation in crypto and regulation itself have their impacts. For instance, while lack of regulation has discouraged some use by institutions, stricter regulation has also proven not very good for expansion. The ban in China in September 2021 affected mining and thus prices later on. ETFs have also effectively reduced demand for physical Bitcoin.
History of BTC Stock to Flow Model and History of Usage in Bitcoin
#1) Stock to flow Plan B model was first popularized for use in Bitcoin in March 2019 by an investor known as PlanB. It is applied in Bitcoin because, like gold and silver, Bitcoin is also expensive to produce.
#2) The family of macroeconomic models that relate to stock-flow was first introduced in the mid-20th Century. However, the current SFC models are post-Keynesian and gained popularity in the 21st Century, especially after the beginning of the financial crisis of 2007-08.
#3) Some hypothesis has been that because Bitcoin’s S2F ratio is highly similar to that of Gold which is so valuable, its price would keep pumping over time. However, even Bitcoin’s stock-to-flow ratio has been fluctuating regularly.
Gold stock-to-flow ratios deviate from their prices as per the graph above.
#4) It is also denied by opponents of Bitcoin’s stock-to-flow-based price predictions that even Gold’s stock-to-flow does not drive its price. For instance, gold analysts do not use or cite it in their price analyses and valuations. This is because it has been highly unrelated to the price of Gold for the better part of history since 1900 as per the below chart.
#5) Some metals that have lower stock-to-flow ratios are worth more than gold. Examples include Platinum and Palladium. Therefore a commodity’s high stock-to-flow ratio should not automatically mean high price prospects.
Here, as seen Platinum trades and costs more than Gold, despite having a much lower stock-to-flow ratio.
Palladium also costs more than Gold despite a much lower stock-to-flow ratio.
#6) The model also assumes that the demand constantly grows. Like Facebook, it could finally hit market saturation where its price may start to fall.
Bitcoin Price Prediction Alternatives to Stock to Flow Plan B Method
Elliot Wave mode performance in BTC since 2020
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Elliot Wave Theory: One of the most common methods that employ technical analyses to model and project the future price of Bitcoin. It assumes that Bitcoin undergoes predictable crowd psychology-induced bull and bear cycles.
The Fulcrum Index: The model is rather a prediction of the overall future and long-term intrinsic value of Bitcoin — which it places at between $108,000 and $160,000 — and not a price prediction. Greg Foss arrived at that value using credit default swaps by treating Bitcoin as insurance on worldwide sovereign debt.
Greater Fool Theory: The theory assumes that the Bitcoin price will follow other overvalued asset prices which tend to increase because people purchase them hoping that they can sell them at a higher price to an even greater fool. It assumes Bitcoin has no inherent value.
Plan B Bitcoin FAQs
Bitcoin prices are correlated to top tech stock prices such as those of Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft. The correlation between the crypto or bitcoin and equity markets has been strong with the crypto markets echoing drop or rise in prices of equity stocks.
The correlation has also been witnessed in recent inflation and rise in interest rates in the United States and other countries.
2. Is Bitcoin stock-to-flow broken?
Bitcoin’s stock-to-flow ratios appear to be correlated with its price on adjusted charts from 2015 to 2023. However, the divergence in the correlation during the better part of 2024 has made some people claim that it is broken and does not hold water.
The model had predicted that the price for Bitcoin would be $100,000 by the year 2024 but that has turned out not to be true.
3. Is Bitcoin a good buy right now?
Bitcoin, which can easily be traded instantly for cash or assets like gold, is a good buy for those who want to acquire it at the near-lowest price in 2024 before a potential pump. Although it will obviously take some time to pump to significantly higher prices than historically seen, there is no doubt that the price will improve as per most predictions.
However, it is not a profitable buy in 2024 for those looking to get very high profits in the short term.
4. Can I make money investing $100 in Bitcoin?
Yes, it is absolutely easy to make $100 even for the first time investing in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, depending on the amount of capital you put in, the type of investment, and the strategy of trading/investing.
It is important to also look carefully at the investment plan, and the potential of the specific investment, and learn how it works before investing as most people lose their investments quickly to poor investment strategies.
Whether it is through mining, staking, dual investments, bot trading, or investing through initial coin or token offerings and venture capital, it does not even take a week for a pro-investor to earn that amount.
5. What is the next cryptocurrency to boom?
There are hundreds of cryptocurrencies to invest in with an expectation for a price pump or increase. These include Cardano, Solana, Ripple, Ethereum, Shiba Inu, Tama Coin, Gala, Cosmos, and Dogecoin. The list is endless.
6. What does stock-to-flow mean?
Stock-to-flow means the ratio of the current stock or circulating supply of an asset to its yearly flow or production. For Bitcoin, the sock-to-flow model is an indication of how many years it would take to double the current circulating supply without taking into consideration the halving or other effects.
7. Is Bitcoin stock-to-flow accurate?
The Bitcoin stock-to-flow model is not perfectly accurate although the S2F ratio has been correlated to Bitcoin price for many years from 2015 to 2023.
The recent divergence in correlation has made many think that the model is not accurate and cannot be utilized to predict the price of Bitcoin in the future. Otherwise, proponents have used it many times to predict the possible future price of the cryptocurrency.
8. Why is the PlanB stock-to-flow Bitcoin evaluation model wrong?
The BTC stock-to-flow model assumes that the price or value of Bitcoin purely derives from supply and demand mechanics and ignores other factors in its calculation. It, therefore, falls short since the price of Bitcoin has been shown to depend on many other factors as well.
These factors include the mining cost, number of nodes and miners, other cryptos and their prices, the utility for instance in payments, volatility, seasonal price movement nature of Bitcoin, price manipulation, and black swan conditions. In addition, the model tends to assume that the valuation of an asset is directly high if its S2F ratio is also high, yet this does not hold water.
9. Is higher stock-to-flow better?
Not necessarily. Some assets and commodities, for instance, have very low stock-to-flow ratios but are more valuable and priced than comparable assets and commodities with a higher stock-to-flow. However, it is taken as dogma that a stock or asset with a higher stock-to-flow ratio will sustain its high value over a long period.
10. Does stock-to-flow work for Ethereum?
BTC stock to flow, which was invented for Bitcoin in 2019 by PlanB, is mainly used for Bitcoin price speculation and valuation but does not necessarily suit the case for Ethereum.
This is because Ethereum’s monetary policy has been changed many times now, and the fact that it is now impossible to accurately predict the number of Ethereum burned. As such, it would be difficult to project Ethereum’s future supply.
Conclusion
This tutorial looked at the PlanB stock-to-flow model of valuing and predicting the price of Bitcoin. Its usage of Bitcoin speculation and valuation has been for the short term so far and therefore it may be that the model working for Bitcoin is largely not well understood or is misunderstood. This includes in terms of how and what supply and demand affect Bitcoin price and value.
Many speculators expect the model to follow through because charts and proponents have shown that the ratios have been fairly (though not exactly accurate) correlated to Bitcoin prices from 2015 to 2022. However, in 2023, its prediction and valuation for Bitcoin fell short by over 60%.
From this tutorial, it is seen that the stock-to-flow model falls short in many instances. It ignores many other factors that are detrimental to Bitcoin price movement, including volatility and manipulation and the fact that the market share is still small.
Thus, in making Bitcoin valuation and price predictions, one may want to compare or complement it using other models.
Research Process:
- Time Taken to Research this Article: 34 hours