Don't Be Fooled by CBBI - Is It Any Good?
You will be hearing about CBBI from all of the "the top is in" guys soon. Educate yourself before someone else will!
Hi,🙋
I am Jacob from CryptoFolks, I’m here to talk about the CBBI indicator. Many of you will see it being used by a ton of “crypto experts” but there is a catch I want to show you. I hope you will enjoy this journey! However, our launch procedures 🛫 require us to inform you not to consider this article as investment advice, as it represents solely our personal opinion. Always remember to manage your portfolios independently.💁♂
What is CBBI?
CBBI is a technical indicator recommended by many experienced people in the cryptocurrency market — but is it really as described? 🤔 You can find it on this website, where various on-chain data indicators can be toggled on. Because many data points are combined into a single index, one might get the impression that it is 100% accurate, which also seems visible when looking at past tops and bottoms. But was it really like that in the past? It turns out — not exactly.
How to read it?
It's simple — we are dealing with an oscillator that "swings" between levels 0 and 100.
Levels close to 0 represent moments when Bitcoin is undervalued according to the indicators included in CBBI 📉.
Conversely, level 100 signals a time when Bitcoin is overvalued, and statistically, it's a better moment to consider selling 💰.
Components of CBBI
CBBI consists of 9 different data sources, and we’ll go through each briefly to better understand what we’re really dealing with. Let’s start with the
Pi-Cycle Top Indicator, which is based on two moving averages (MA):
The 111-day moving average
2x the 350-day moving average
When these two averages cross, the indicator suggests that Bitcoin is approaching a local top 📈.
The next component is RUPL/NUPL.
RUPL – Realized and Unrealized Profit and Loss
NUPL – Net Unrealized Profit and Loss
These indicators describe the realized and unrealized profits or losses currently experienced by investors. They help estimate how many people are in profit or under water — it’s not a perfect metric, but one worth watching (though its value can be manipulated by large players on the market).
RHODL ratio is the next piece — it compares the number of coins held for a week to those held for 1–2 years. It allows us to identify capitulation moments, such as panic selling.
Puell Multiple measures miners’ revenue relative to the historical average over the past year. High values often (but not always) correlate with tops when miners sell large amounts of BTC to lock in profits.
2-Year Moving Average is a technical analysis channel showing whether the price is above the average for a given period — in this case, two years.
Next up is the Bitcoin Rainbow Chart, also a technical element showing highs and lows in a logarithmic scale, with various levels in between. 🌈 The name comes from its rainbow-like appearance.
MVRV Z-Score is the ratio of Market Value to Realized Value. The Z-Score indicates deviation from the historical average — helping identify potential tops and bottoms.
Reserve Risk shows confidence among long-term Bitcoin holders relative to its price over time. It’s another metric implemented in CBBI — though we won’t go into technical details here.
The last one is Woobull Top Cap vs CVDD, a chart combining various calculations and on-chain data to try to identify Bitcoin's price top.
Now that we know what it consists of, we can move on to the main point — analyzing CBBI as a whole.
Is it reliable?
You might think — what’s the point of manipulating a technical indicator in a relatively small crypto market? 🤨 It turns out the indicator was rescaled around August 10, 2023 (in the update called CBBI 2023 adjustment) so that the peak values of 2021 would show close to 100, while previously it showed around 70–80 — giving new investors the impression of a perfect indicator.
We can go through countless tweets and videos from that period to see this in action. Here are a few examples:
Comparing that to the state post August 2023, as of May 10th 2025, it’s clear that the index calculation method was altered to make it look like it perfectly predicted the Bitcoin top.
So, can we trust it?
In our opinion, an indicator that doesn’t work in real time is not worth much. We’ve seen it give low readings at Bitcoin bottoms, and during recent rallies, history seems to be repeating. It's again at values around 80 and struggles to go higher. Due to the modification, it has lost trust. Now, the only trustworthy readings are post-adjustment, while everything before is disconnected from reality because of the changed calculation. 📉
With that in mind, its current credibility is very low, if any at all. We can use it to sense we’re on the higher side of the spectrum — but we should not expect CBBI readings near 100 to signal Bitcoin’s price peak.
Does this mean the creators want to manipulate it for their own benefit?
Probably not. The project is open-source, where the code can be audited. The site has no ads or sponsored content, but the indicator itself has become quite popular — not just in Poland but globally 🌍. This means new or unaware investors might be misled into thinking that CBBI can predict Bitcoin tops and bottoms, when in fact it’s just a market oscillator, giving rough guidance on whether BTC is cheap or expensive.
So remember: if something seems 100% effective, it probably isn’t.
In the crypto space, there have been, are, and will be many such cases — not just among projects, but among indicators too.
The takeaway?
We and our own knowledge should be the indicator for ourselves. We shouldn't rely on tools or ideas from unverified sources to truly understand the current situation. That's why education is the key to success. 🎓💡