Bitcoin Equilibrium: Active Market Participants Just Breaking Even

[Ben Graham]

On-chain data shows the Bitcoin price is currently floating around the cost basis of the Active Investors, suggesting this cohort is at break-even.

Bitcoin Is Trading At The Active Investors Mean

In a new post on X, on-chain analytics firm Glassnode has shared an update on where the major Bitcoin on-chain levels currently stand. There are four pricing models of interest here, the most basic of which is the Realized Price.

The Realized Price basically keeps track of the cost basis or acquisition level of the average investor on the BTC network. The spot price trading above this line means that the holders as a whole are in a state of net unrealized profit, while the reverse situation suggests the dominance of loss in the market.

Below is the chart shared by Glassnode that shows the trend in this metric over the last few years.

As displayed in the graph, the Bitcoin spot price crossed above the Realized Price back at the start of 2023, and since then, its value has remained above the indicator.

At present, the Realized Price is sitting at $56,200, which means that the network as a whole is in a significant amount of profit at the current spot price.

While the Realized Price does provide an overall view of the blockchain, it doesn’t tend to be too useful outside of bear markets as the asset rarely interacts with it. This is a consequence of the fact that it accounts for all tokens in circulation, even the ones that have become inaccessible due to lost wallet keys.

Two other models in the chart, the True Market Mean and Active Realized Price, exist to solve this issue. These indicators only provide the cost basis of the active market participants. That is, the Bitcoin investors who have recently been involved in transaction activity.

The first model, the True Market Mean, is situated at $81,100 right now. This is around where the cryptocurrency found its bottom when it crashed in November. Meanwhile, the Active Realized Price corresponds to $87,700, which is the level about which BTC has recently been consolidating.

As Bitcoin is currently trading right at the Active Realize Price, the investors holding the economically active supply can be assumed to be just breaking even on their investment.

While the active traders as a whole have a neutral profitability, the same isn’t true for a segment of them known as the short-term holders (STHs). Formally, the STHs are defined as the addresses who acquired their coins within the past 155 days.

With the Bitcoin STH Realized Price equal to $99,900 at the moment, this cohort is in a state of net loss.

BTC Price

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is floating around $87,700, down 2.6% in the last seven days.