Bitcoin’s ongoing price struggle 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 seems tired.
According to Crypto Slates According to data, the BTC price is down about 46% from its all-time high of almost $126,000 in early October 2025 and is trading around $67,470 at the time of writing.
Glassnode has described the post-October market as a three-phase unload, with BTC experiencing a rapid decline towards the “real market average” of $79,200, consolidation until the end of January, and a decisive collapse that accelerated the move towards the $60,000 area.
In light of this, a large portion of BTC’s recent buyers are underwater, and their breakeven levels are starting to act like a ceiling.
In a market built on leverage, momentum and reflexive flows, that ceiling can be as important as a macro headline. When the price rises back to the cost basis of underwater holders, many sell to exit altogether, turning jumps into supply events.
Break-even walls, short-term holders are flooded
CryptoQuant’s realized price UTXO age bands assign that the price of BTC has fallen below the price ranges realized by the short-term holder.
This technical way of saying that many short-term participants are underwater, and the recent downside is largely driven by the spread out of this cohort.
Glassnode has described the same dynamic from a different angle, noting that short-term holders’ profitability “remains negative.” The implication is not only that newer entrants suffer losses, but also that their ability to absorb additional volatility diminishes.
As a result, these holders have become reactive and sell at the first sign of strength to limit losses.
That behavior turns a bounce into a fade. It also makes the market feel heavy even if the tape improves for a day.
Essentially, the supply comes not only from panic sellers making a bid, but also from stuck holders waiting for the price to return.
Long-term holders are showing tension, SOPR is falling and Binance inflows are rising
The more consequential shift is that stress is beginning to manifest beyond short-term participants.
One of the cleaner tension meters in the chain is SOPR (spend output profit ratio), which tracks whether coins moved in the chain are realized at a profit (above 1) or at a loss (below 1).
For long-term holders, SOPR applies the same concept to older coins, typically coins held for longer than 155 days.
CryptoQuant facts indicate that long-term holder SOPR is in negative territory.
While the annual average LTH SOPR remains high 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 build-up of financial tension within a cohort typically considered the stabilizing base of the market.
This in itself is not a classic “everyone capitulates” signal. Long-term holders are not a monolith, and coins can move for reasons that have nothing to do with directional fear.
Yet the losses resulting from older supply changes change the nature of a downturn. It suggests that the selling pressure isn’t just coming from latecomers who chased the top and are now trying to get out.
CryptoQuant signals a new behavioral change that makes the signal more difficult to ignore.
Despite the rising share of realized losses, long-term holders have increased their inflows into Binance in recent weeks.
Binance is one of the deepest liquidity platforms in the market. When large holders want freedom of choice, whether to sell, hedge or restructure their exposure, they tend to move coins to wherever the size can handle it.
In that context, rising long-term shareholder inflows can be interpreted as an intensification of 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 purchasing activity has not disappeared.
However, the on-chain data suggests a division in the market between steady accumulators and a short-term cohort losing momentum.
Strategy, formerly MicroStrategy, reported that it added 2,486 Bitcoin between February 9 and 16, bringing its holdings to more than 717,000 BTC.
The importance of this purchase lies not only in the headline, but also in the type of demand it represents.
It represents spot buying from a visible institutional holder and creates a bid that allows traders to take their expectations into account, even if they disagree on how long it will last.
Data from CryptoQuant indicates a similar pattern among whales, who have increased their holdings even as their currency inflows increase.
According to the company, the supply of BTC held by whales increased by 200,000 BTC last month to more than 3.1 million BTC.
The last time a move of this magnitude hit the market was during the April 2025 correction, a period when buying by big investors likely helped absorb selling pressure and support the rally that took Bitcoin from $76,000 to $126,000.
However, this accumulation is unfolding as short-term demand for BTC cools.
Alphractal facts show that short-term holders are not adding BTC at the same rate as 90 days ago.
The company reported that short-term holders’ 90-day net position change remains positive but has declined rapidly in recent days.
While this means that short-term bonds are still accumulating, they are doing so more slowly than in previous periods.
This dynamic often precedes consolidation, increased volatility or a regime change, as the cohort most likely to push upward becomes less aggressive.
What would confirm the stabilization, and what would indicate a deeper downtrend
All things considered, the most defensible reading of the current convergence is that Bitcoin is stuck between a breakeven wall above and a structural cost floor below.
The wall is formed by short-term underwater holders, as evidenced by CryptoQuant’s realized price ranges, and by above-ground supply clusters that turn rallies into sell zones.
So BTC’s next step depends on whether liquidity conditions and cohort behavior start to change, rather than whether a single whale is bought.
If Bitcoin can regain the short-term holder’s realized price ranges and support trading above them, it would reduce the incentive for stuck sellers to unload on each rally.
It could also indicate that the market is rebuilding a base in which new supply is being acquired at prices that do not immediately cause overhead resistance.
However, if the price fails to regain those short-term cost margins and long-term tension continues to build, the risk of a downturn becomes self-reinforcing.
The combination could put pressure on the market and could drive the price of the top cryptocurrency further down.