Bitcoin 

BTC

$21,149

 may score a new all-time high in 2021, but the odds are that it won’t happen next month.

Historical price data confirms that September tends to see BTC price losses — and its best-ever returns are still single figures.

September 2021 looks like a classic for BTC

As Bitcoin matures, it becomes more noticeable that BTC/USD behaves in similar ways during the same month each year.

Q4 is the clear standout for top performance, especially in the year following a block subsidy halving. By contrast, January tends to be bearish — although this year was a conspicuous exception to the rule.

Turning to September, however, and the picture is uninspiring for investors. Summer may be over, but historically, next month has never seen Bitcoin increase by more than 6%.

“Bitcoin doesn’t like September at all,” Cointelegraph contributor Michaël van de Poppe commented this week.

“Are we going to repeat and have a corrective month across markets, before the continuation of bull cycle?”

Better luck in Q4?

September is already tipped to deliver a slightly lower price zone than August, something that PlanB, creator of the stock-to-flow Bitcoin price models, said is merely a data technicality.

Related: Is the time right for $50K BTC? 5 things to watch in Bitcoin this week

Bitcoiners may not need to grin and bear it for long, however, as October tends to deliver much more convincing momentum.

Yet for the meantime, it seems that a retest of all-time highs will need to wait. At the time of writing, BTC/USD traded at $47,600, having lost around 1.6% in the past 24 hours.