End of 2025 Letter: Year of The Doji
The Bitcoin price in 2025 has traded within a $51,720 price range, spans a market cap change of $1.032 Trillion, and yet looks set to close the year just a few percentage points below the starting gun
G’day Folks,
The year is finally coming to a close, and in true chopsolidation style, the price has gone absolutely nowhere, but the road to get there is lined with countless liquidated accounts on both the long and short side.
We can go all the way back to May-2024 in Expecting Chopsolidation, when I first defined ‘chopsolidation’, and find a perfectly apt description of the last 12-months:
“Chopsolidation”: A period where the market chops wood and trades sideways after a powerful bull market advance. Chopsolidation tends to last just long enough for people to get bored, walk away, and miss the rest of the uptrend.
The 2025 Doji price candle (candlestick pattern where Bitcoin’s opening and closing prices for the year are nearly identical) is quite something, representing a $51,720 range, and spanning over $1.032 Trillion in market cap…yet the $88.2k price today is just -5.6% below the yearly open of $93.4k.
A lot happened this year..and nothing has happened at the same time.
Whilst the price tells a somewhat disappointing story, there has been an extraordinary amount of action under the surface.
Over the 100+ editions of the Checkonchain newsletter in 2025, we have learned many lessons, and sharpened our analytical tools. There were several major calls we got very right, and plenty where we could have done better.
This letter will be a reflection on the year, but also a look ahead for our paid subscribers. It is a piece that will condense the key lessons I have learned as a professional analyst this year, such that we can be better prepared for next year.
My goal is to set the table for what will almost certainly not be another doji- candle year in 2026.
Company Update: Checkonchain Is Growing
I want to start with a massive thank you to every single one of our paid members.
Checkonchain is, by far, the best job we have ever had, and you make it possible.
What started as an excuse for me to learn to code with python, and get off excel back in 2019, has grown into the #2 Substack in the Crypto category, a charting suite with 600+ charts, and over 150k lines of code that runs every day to produce them.
As a business, Checkonchain is now a full time gig for three best friends, Alec, myself, and our newest addition Jacinta, who has come on board as our designer to give Checkonchain a new lick of paint.
The original goal Alec and I set out with, was to deliver the most professional, high quality, and consistent Bitcoin analysis in the market, to help our members navigate the volatility. The mission was to reduce uncertainty, irrespective of which way the market moved, which we believe makes Bitcoin much easier to HODL.
We know for sure that we can’t predict the future, but we can certainly prepare for it.
Bitcoin markets are a treasure trove of data, and this allows us to visualise the interplay between spot, ETF, and derivatives markets like never before. When you can visualise and see WHY the market does what it does, it makes it much easier to see signal through the noise.
We have a unique lens into the story the market is telling us, and the art (and science) is all about how we stitch those puzzle pieces together.
Upcoming Checkonchain Upgrades
We had our first Checkonchian Christmas party last Friday, and as is often the case, there are plenty of fresh ideas and projects being work-shopped to get us extremely excited.
A few Checkonchain updates are imminent for members to look forward to in 2026:
Comprehensive onchain data directly from Check’s node: I am in the final stages of integrating a brand new back-end for onchain data based on the Bitcoin Research Kit. When paired with the data I already obtain from my friend at ResearchBitcoin.net, it opens up an entirely new pool of metrics to analyse, and also gives our business an additional layer of self-sovereign security.
I do not know how the guys at ResearchBitcoin.net and Bitcoin Research Kit do it, but the pair of you are geniuses, and you should both be extremely proud of what you have built. You’re both in the highest tier of legendary status for Bitcoin onchain analysis, and I personally cannot thank either of you enough. Consider me a forever-shill of your respective work.
A new charting site is coming. Alec has been hard at work all year rebuilding our long-outdated charting website. Upgrading the charting suite has been by far the most requested ‘area for improvement’ in our surveys, and we’re getting very close to the final launch. A quick summary of the features to look forward to:
Search, sidebar, and massively improved navigation.
Favourites, custom and pre-built dashboards, and alerts.
Descriptions, tutorials and metric guides.
Faster intra-day updates for most of our charts.
A (very) slight re-calibration of the newsletter to address subscriber feedback from our latest survey. The two major things that stood out to me the most was 20% to 30% of our members wanted slightly more frequent posts, and/or signalled they are ‘getting the hang of it’ when it comes to the analysis complexity.
To solve for both of these pieces of feedback, I am aiming to introduce a more structured ‘back to basics’ line of content next year. The aim will be to simplify the jargon, and focus on the core analysis concepts on a regular basis. My aim is for Checkonchain members to understand more about the underlying WHY behind the tools I select and use for each market problem.
We also have internally floated the idea of a merch-store, which would bring your favourite Bitcoin chart (with some Checkonchain humour and twist) to coffee mugs and high quality clothing (caps, shirts etc.). I have always wanted a ‘Thank F*** It’s Coinday’ mug…because I am a nerd.
We love getting feedback from our members too, so please feel free to reach out if you ever have suggestions. These updates are just the tip of the iceberg, and we can’t wait to ship them.
Now, let’s jump into the 2025 reflection, market update summary & video.
Premium Members will find the TL:DR summary, video update and the rest of the written post below. Consider upgrading to premium today to unlock the rest of the content!