A Bitcoin on-chain pattern that signaled the end of the bear market during the last three instances has formed once again recently.
Bitcoin Short-Term Holder Realized Price Is Now Above That Of Long-Term Holders
As pointed out by an analyst on Twitter, the asset may be in the middle of a transition from a bull market to a bear market. The relevant indicator here is the “realized price,” which is a value derived from the realized cap.
This realized cap is a capitalization model for Bitcoin that says each circulating coin’s worth isn’t the current BTC price, but actually the value at which it was last transferred on the blockchain.
When this model is divided by the total number of coins in circulation, the aforementioned “realized price” is obtained. Since the realized cap accounted for the prices at which the coins were last purchased, that is to say, the holders’ cost bases, the realized price represents the acquisition price or the cost basis of the average investor in the market.
This realized price covers the entire market, but the metric can also be defined for only portions of the user base. The realized prices of the “long-term holders” (LTHs) and the “short-term holders” (STHs), in particular, are of interest here.
These two holder groups form the two main cohorts that the Bitcoin market can be divided into. The STHs include investors that have been holding their coins since less than 155 days ago, while the LTHs include those that have been holding since more than this threshold amount.
Now, here is a chart that shows the trend in the realized prices of these two BTC cohorts over the last few months:
Looks like the two metrics have crossed each other in recent days | Source: James V. Straten on Twitter
As displayed in the above graph, the Bitcoin realized price for the entire market, as well as for the STHs and LTHs, was above the normal price just before the rally started in January.
This means that the average investor in all the sections of the market was in a state of loss then. With the rally, however, the price quickly crossed all three of these prices, implying that these investors were back in profit.
Recently, as the price surge has continued, the market has started to see a shift in the different realized prices. From the chart, it’s apparent that the metric’s value for the LTHs has dipped below that for the STHs very recently.
This means that the cost basis of the LTHs is now below that of the STHs. This is the first time since May 2019 that this kind of shift has occurred in the Bitcoin market.
“This has happened three times previously, and each time has signaled the end of a bear market,” explains the analyst. It now remains to be seen whether this historical signal will hold true this time as well.
BTC Price
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading around $27,900, up 1% in the last week.
BTC has moved sideways recently | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView
Featured image from Kanchanara on Unsplash.com, charts from TradingView.com, Glassnode.com
