Cycle Top Risk Index: CTRI
An early warning system for crypto market conditions.
CTRI v3.1 | December 2025
What It Is
Four signals. One regime reading. Updated weekly.
CTRI monitors the conditions that historically precede cycle tops and forced deleveraging—so you see the environment shifting before it hits price.
| Output | Question It Answers |
|---|---|
| Cycle Risk | Is the market overheated? (0-100) |
| Liquidity | Is the Fed helping or hurting? |
| Override | Is something about to break? |
| Transmission | Is money actually flowing in? |
Liquidity tells you whether capital can flow. Transmission tells you whether it is.
These combine into one regime: Low Cycle Risk, Neutral, Elevated, or High Risk.
This Week’s Reading
| Output | Status | Reading |
|---|---|---|
| Cycle Risk | 🟢 | 14/100 |
| Liquidity | 🟢 | Tailwind |
| Override | 🟢 | OFF |
| Transmission | 🟢 | ON (+$2B, +30% volume) |
Regime: 🟢 LOW CYCLE RISK
On-chain metrics are mid-cycle. The Fed isn’t draining. No macro bombs ticking. Fiat stablecoins added $2B in two weeks with transaction volume up 30%—real activity, not idle mints.
Low Cycle Risk means absence of late-cycle stress signals—not absence of volatility.
How Regimes Work
| Conditions | Regime |
|---|---|
| 🟢 Low risk + Transmission ON | Low Cycle Risk |
| 🟡 Mixed signals | Neutral |
| 🟠 Warning signs present | Elevated |
| 🔴 High risk OR Override ON | High Risk |
Regime Shifts
Override supersedes everything—it reflects conditions historically tied to forced deleveraging.
Without Override, regime changes require deterioration across at least two dimensions. A single hot metric doesn’t flip the reading.
Adaptation Rules
The framework adjusts sensitivity based on macro regime:
- When ISM exceeds 58 for two consecutive months, action thresholds drop 10 points
- When Liquidity reads Headwind, thresholds drop 5 points
- These are the only adjustments
Interpreting the Regimes
| Regime | Typical Posture |
|---|---|
| 🟢 Low Cycle Risk | Patience favored |
| 🟡 Neutral | Position sizing discipline |
| 🟠 Elevated | Reduce leverage, raise scrutiny |
| 🔴 High Risk | Survival mindset |
Interpretive frameworks, not recommendations.
When It Mattered
August 2024
Every indicator showed “all clear.” Then BOJ hiked rates, yen strengthened, and BTC dropped from $64K to $49K in 72 hours.
Override triggered 48 hours before the crash—by watching Japanese bonds, not crypto.
| Indicator | Detected? |
|---|---|
| MVRV | ❌ |
| Fear & Greed | ❌ |
| Pi Cycle | ❌ |
| CTRI Override | ✅ 48hrs early |
Some crashes aren’t about crypto at all.
November 2021
MVRV peaked at 3.8. The “danger zone” is 4.0. Most traders assumed room to run.
CTRI saw two things:
- 3.8 was 98th percentile of the prior two years—extreme recently, even if not historically
- Fed started tapering—Liquidity shifting to Headwind
Flagged Elevated weeks before the 77% drawdown.
What It Won’t Catch
| Blind Spot | Example |
|---|---|
| Exchange fraud | FTX |
| Flash crashes | Too fast for weekly cadence |
| Exact timing | Weeks early, not days |
| Regulatory shocks | China mining ban |
CTRI detects cycle exhaustion and macro stress. Not fraud. Not black swans.
CTRI is optimized to minimize false negatives near cycle tops, even at the cost of occasional early warnings.
Full analysis of historical failures: Stress Test
Current Snapshot
| Metric | Value | Status |
|---|---|---|
| MVRV Z-Score | 2.28 | 🟢 |
| NUPL | 0.55 | 🟢 |
| Funding Rates | 9% ann. | 🟢 |
| ETF Flows (30d) | -$200M | 🟢 |
| Net Liquidity YoY | +3.41% | 🟢 |
| JGB 10Y | 1.97% | 🟢 |
| Stablecoin Inflows (14d) | +$2.0B | 🟢 |
| Stablecoin Volume (30d) | +30.7% | 🟢 |
What’s Under the Hood
CTRI synthesizes:
- On-chain — MVRV, NUPL, short-term holder behavior
- Leverage — Funding rates
- ETF flows — Demand through traditional rails
- Macro liquidity — Fed balance sheet, money market stress
- Systemic risk — JGB yields, yen strength, SOFR spreads
- Stablecoin flows — Fiat inflows and velocity
Thresholds, weights, and calculation logic are proprietary. The weekly reading is public.
Updates
New reading drops weekly.
Pierce & Pierce Research — CTRI v3.1
This is a conditions monitor, not financial advice.
