Analysts suggest that Bitcoin's recent rise to $66,000 could be the start of a change in the market structure that has emerged since this year's price peak in March.
The correction of Bitcoin quotes at the beginning of October to levels of about $60 thousand led to the fact that almost 50% of unrealized losses fell on long-term holders of the main cryptocurrency, according to the analytical company Glassnode.
“If we isolate the share of total losses attributable to long-term holders, we see a sharp increase in their dominance: this group now accounts for 47.4% of all losing coins,” the experts wrote in the report.
Unrealized loss refers to potential financial losses if an investor sells their bitcoins. And by long-term holders, Glassnode means addresses where bitcoins have been stored without movement for more than 155 days. Short-term investors are addresses where bitcoins have been stored without movement for less than 155 days. Despite the “paper” losses of long-term holders, about 90% of such investors still remain in profit, which indicates a high degree of resistance to price fluctuations in this group of investors. And as experts noted, “the financial pressure due to the fall in the price of bitcoin can be interpreted as minimal.”
Glassnode's core business is analyzing so-called on-chain data, which is a type of research into information obtained from public blockchain networks such as Bitcoin and Ethereum$ETH . Since blockchain is an open ledger of information with the entire transaction history accessible to anyone from anywhere in the world at any time, researchers have begun to use on-chain to monitor transactions and user behavior for price forecasting.
The trend of increasing unrealized losses for long-term Bitcoin holders began in the first months of 2024, when the Bitcoin price reached its historical maximum of about $73 thousand.
At the same time, the share of short-term Bitcoin holders who have a “profitable” position in Bitcoin has increased since September, reaching 62%.
