Bitcoin: Why THIS group’s refusal to sell can spark BTC’s next rally

Key Takeaways

Bitcoin’s short-term holders struggle, with realized profits not exceeding 5% over the past 10 months.  But this group holds on as the sell-side risk remains extremely low.

Bitcoin [BTC] has traded within a multi-month ascending channel, with healthy pullbacks along the way. BTC has held firmly above $100k for 56 consecutive days, reflecting a sustained uptrend. 

Amid this price uptick, Bitcoin has rallied to multiple ATHs, leaving all market participants in profit. However, short-term holders have recorded minimal gains, as observed by CryptoQuant Analyst Darkfost. 

Bitcoin short-term holders’ struggles 

Darkfost observed that, over the past 10 months, the average profit realized by short-term holders hasn’t exceeded 5%. 

Over this period, the cohort’s SOPR has not moved above 1.05, but remained within a neutral ratio of 1. Often, when STHs meet such a fate, it’s mostly because they entered the market late into the rally.  

As a result, the supply of short-term holders in loss has continued to rise over the past week. According to Checkonchain, STH Supply in Loss has surged from 190.3k BTC to 1.27 million BTC as of this writing. 

STHs still hold strong  

Despite low profitability and rising losses due to increasing supply, STHs continue to hold on, waiting for Bitcoin to rise further and record more gains. 

Sell-side risk from the cohort has continued to decline, dropping below a very low liquidity threshold. At press time, this metric sat around 0.0007, suggesting that short-term holders are not selling but holding at a loss. 

Historically, such a low sell-side risk ratio has appeared during the bottoming zone, where selling pressure has been exhausted. 

On top of that, there has been no notable change from young coins to older ones over the past month. As noted by Axel Adler, Short-term holders were around 47% at press time, with a 30-day flow change of zero. 

The falling RVT ratio further evidenced the STH cool-off. As of this writing, the metric stood at 0.058, indicating that STHs were relatively quiet, showing less stress on the market. 

Often, such behavior has preceded price rebounds since selling fatigue is elevated, resulting in fading downside pressure.

Bitcoin’s future hinges on…

According to AMBCrypto’s analysis, Bitcoin short-term holders have continued to hold onto the market despite low profitability and rising losses.

Selling pressure has faded, as this group currently lacks the incentive to sell. Based on this behavior, Bitcoin could rebound from the recent pullback and reclaim $117k resistance, where it has faced multiple rejections.

However, if this cohort starts to panic sell, Bitcoin will face intense downward pressure and decline to find support around $112k.