Bitcoin’s ongoing price struggles is turning into a market defined less by “bad news” and more by mechanics, the kind that can keep a downtrend alive even when selling looks tired.
According to CryptoSlate’s data, the BTC price is down approximately 46% from the record high near $126,000 set in early October 2025 and trading around $67,470 as of press time.
Glassnode has described the post-October market as a three-stage unwind where BTC experienced a rapid decline toward its “True Market Mean” of $79,200, consolidation through late January, and a decisive breakdown that accelerated the move toward the $60,000 area.
In light of this, a large share of BTC’s recent buyers are underwater, and their break-even levels are starting to behave like a ceiling.
In a market built on leverage, momentum, and reflexive flows, that ceiling can matter as much as a macro headline. When price rises back toward the cost basis of underwater holders, many sell to exit whole, turning bounces into supply events.
Break-even walls, short-term holders are underwater
CryptoQuant’s realized price UTXO age bands indicate that BTC’s price has moved below the short-term holder realized price bands.
This technical way of saying that many short-term participants are underwater, and that recent downside has been driven largely by distribution from this cohort.
Glassnode has described the same dynamic from a different angle, noting that short-term holder profitability “remains negative.” The implication is not only that newer entrants are incurring losses, but also that their capacity to absorb additional volatility is reduced.
As a result, these holders have become reactive, selling at the first sign of strength to limit losses.
That behavior is what turns a bounce into a fade. It also makes the market feel heavy even when the tape improves for a day.
Essentially, the supply is not only coming from panic sellers hitting bids but also from trapped holders waiting for the price to come back.
Long-term holders show strain, SOPR slips, and Binance inflows rise
The more consequential shift is that stress is beginning to manifest beyond short-term participants.
One of the cleaner on-chain stress gauges is SOPR (spent output profit ratio), which tracks whether coins moved on-chain are being realized at a profit (above 1) or a loss (below 1).
For long-term holders, SOPR applies the same concept to older coins, typically those held for more than 155 days.
CryptoQuant data indicate that the long-term holder SOPR has moved into negative territory.
While the annual average LTH SOPR remains elevated at 1.87, the indicator has fallen below the key threshold of 1 to 0.88, a configuration not seen since the end of the 2023 bear market.
On average, this implies that long-term holders are now realizing losses on sales, a gradual buildup of financial stress within a cohort that is usually treated as the market’s stabilizing base.
This is not a classic “everyone capitulates” signal by itself. Long-term holders are not a monolith, and coins can move for reasons unrelated to directional fear.
Still, losses realized from older supply changes alter the character of a drawdown. It suggests that sell pressure is not coming only from late entrants who chased the top and are now trying to exit.
CryptoQuant flags another behavior shift that makes the signal harder to ignore.
Despite the rising share of realized losses, long-term holders have increased their inflows to Binance in recent weeks.
Binance is one of the deepest liquidity venues in the market. When large holders want optionality, whether to sell, hedge, or restructure exposure, they tend to move coins to the venue that can handle size.
In that context, rising long-term holder inflows can be interpreted as intensifying sell-side pressure, even if it has not yet manifested as a single liquidation day.
Big buyers are still active, but short-term demand is losing momentum
Even in this setup, BTC buying activity has not disappeared.
However, the on-chain data indicate a market split between steady accumulators and a short-term cohort that is losing momentum.
Strategy, formerly MicroStrategy, reported that it added 2,486 Bitcoin between Feb. 9 and Feb. 16, bringing its holdings to more than 717,000 BTC.
The significance of this purchase lies not in the headline alone, but in the type of demand it represents.
It represents spot buying from a visible institutional holder and creates a bid that traders can factor into their expectations, even if they disagree on how long it will persist.
CryptoQuant data indicate a similar pattern among whales, who have increased their holdings even as their exchange inflows rise.
According to the firm, the whale-held BTC supply increased by 200,000 BTC over the past month to more than 3.1 million BTC.
The last time a move of this size appeared in the market was during the April 2025 correction, a period when large-holder buying likely helped absorb selling pressure and supported the rally that carried Bitcoin from $76,000 to $126,000.
However, this accumulation is unfolding as short-term demand for BTC cools.
Alphractal data show short-term holders are not adding BTC at the same pace as they were 90 days ago.
The firm reported that the short-term holder net position change over 90 days remains positive but has been declining rapidly in recent days.
While that means short-term holders are still accumulating, they are doing so more slowly than in previous periods.
This dynamic often precedes consolidation, increased volatility, or a regime shift, as the cohort most likely to chase upside becomes less aggressive.
What would confirm stabilization, and what would signal deeper downside
Put together, the most defensible read of the current convergence is that Bitcoin is stuck between a break-even wall above and a structural cost floor below.
The wall is formed by short-term underwater holders, as shown by CryptoQuant’s realized price bands, and by overhead supply clusters that convert rallies into sell zones.
Thus, BTC’s next move hinges on whether liquidity conditions and cohort behavior begin to shift, rather than on whether a single whale buy prints.
If Bitcoin can reclaim the short-term holder realized price bands and sustain trade above them, it would reduce the incentive for trapped sellers to unload into every rally.
It would also suggest that the market is rebuilding a base, in which new supply is being acquired at prices that do not immediately create overhead resistance.
However, if price fails to regain those short-term cost bands and long-term holders’ stress continues to build, the drawdown risk becomes more self-reinforcing.
The combination would exert pressure on the market and could drive the price of the top cryptocurrency further downward.
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