Most old-school investors have heard of the Super Bowl Indicator that famously predicts the results of the stock market in any given year based on the result of The Big Game. Well, there’s a new currency in town, and it’s only fitting that the Super Bowl result is the key to predicting the crypto markets just the same as the S&P. Enter the unblemished Bitcoin Super Bowl Indicator.

Since 2013–the year that Bitcoin’s market cap reached $1 Billion and the popular cryptocurrency first hit the mainstream–the winner of the Super Bowl has accurately foretold whether or not Bitcoin would finish up or down for the calendar year, provided that the Super Bowl is played in front of a capacity crowd, of course.

That’s right, in all 12 “normal” Super Bowls (discounting that 2021 COVID-era exhibition game in Tampa in front of a mere 20,000 fans) since Bitcoin burst onto the scene, the Bitcoin Super Bowl Indicator is a perfect 12-0. It’s simple: if an AFC team wins the Super Bowl, Bitcoin goes up. If an NFC team wins the Super Bowl, Bitcoin goes down. As cut and dry as it comes, so long as you’ve accepted the rather minor caveats that come along with it.

The original Super Bowl Indicator

The original Super Bowl Indicator was the brainchild of sportswriter Leonard Koppett in 1978. Koppett’s Super Bowl Stock Theory correctly predicted market results for 23 consecutive years (and 30 of the first 31 Super Bowls)–better than 95% of the time–and has been widely re-popularized by Jason Zweig of the Wall Street Journal over the years. 

The original theory stated that if a team from the National Football League as of 1966 (the first season with an AFL-NFL Championship) wins the Super Bowl, the stock market will finish up for the calendar year. While expansion teams and conference realignment muddied the waters over the years, it essentially boiled down to the NFC vs. the AFC. But unlike in the crypto streets, which root for the AFC, an NFC win historically leads to the desired result in the stock market.

Is the Bitcoin Super Bowl Indicator Here To Stay?

In 2026, we’ve already seen a volatile crypto market. Do the negative crypto returns thus far indicate that the NFC’s Seahawks will win the Super Bowl? To mix financial metaphors, let’s just say we’re Hawkish.

Bitcoin was launched in 2009, but reliable pricing is hard to come by in the early days. So does it really matter that the Super Bowl outcomes from 2010-12 do not align with the otherwise perfect results of the Bitcoin Super Bowl Indicator? You tell us: were you trading Bitcoin then? Did you even know what it was?!

How about that in the one year in which an NFC team won the Super Bowl and Bitcoin went up in price, there happens to be an arbitrary game attendance requirement in the Bitcoin Super Bowl Indicator that nullifies the conflicting result and conveniently keeps the BSBI untarnished? Again, you tell us: were you at that Super Bowl? Did you know anyone who was?!

No sense getting bogged down in the details. The line between coincidence and conspiracy has never been blurrier. Who’s to say that the Bitcoin Super Bowl Indicator is in fact causation rather than spurious correlation?