At the moment, $125K marks the current upper limit of Bitcoin’s Short-Term Holder (STH) price action in bull market conditions, derived from an optimized framework using the STH cost basis ($88,517) as the baseline.

This approach accounts for Bitcoin’s evolving market conditions and shows that, in previous cycles, Bitcoin did not top before reaching this upper band - though it sometimes exceeded it temporarily.

In March 2024, the market tagged this level intra-cycle.

Currently, Bitcoin trades at $105,094 - 18.7% above the STH cost basis and well within bullish norms. However, if the price drops below $88,517, unrealized losses could trigger increased sell-side pressure.

Key thresholds for STHs:
- $125,653: Current upper band (bull market extremes).
- $88,517: Average cost basis.
- $68,549: Lower band (bear market lows).

As the STH cost basis rises, the upper band will adjust dynamically. Explore this chart here: https://glassno.de/4arR3bq

📊 Bitcoin Supply in Unrealized Loss: Insights into Market Stress
Historically, the number of $BTC held in unrealized loss provides a reference point for assessing market stress:
🔸 Bull markets: <4M BTC in loss. 🔹 Early bear markets: 4–8M BTC in loss.

Last week, market volatility pushed 2.0–3.5M BTC into loss, still lower than the 4M BTC seen during mid-2024 lows.

For context: 🔻 2018 bear market: 10.7M BTC in loss. 🔻 2020 COVID crash: 10.4M BTC in loss.

📉 Another view: The Relative Unrealized Loss metric (unrealized losses relative to market cap) peaked at ~4.3% in Q3 2024 - far below the 10%+ levels seen during past external shocks like COVID or the 2021 China mining ban.

This highlights a more resilient market structure in the current cycle.

🔗 Dive deeper into the data here:
Total Supply in Loss
Entity-Adjusted Relative Unrealized Loss

The Week On-Chain 43, 2024
The Bitcoin spot price has continued to march higher, trading up to $69k, only 6.8% below the ATH. The price uptick has broken through several critical levels using technical and on-chain inputs. This is one of the first signs of positive price momentum since late June.

Executive Summary
- The Bitcoin spot price has briefly rallied above $69k after successfully clearing several significant technical and on-chain pricing levels.
- From an On-chain perspective, all sub-age-groups within the Short-Term Holder cohort now hold an unrealized profit, likely a tailwind for market sentiment.
- However, speculation in futures markets is increasing, with open interest surging to new ATHs and a non-trivial portion attributed to the cash and carry basis trade.

Read more in The Week On-Chain newsletter.