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Pioneering on-chain market analysis. Advanced charts/data/insights for investors in Bitcoin and digital assets. https://studio.glassnode.com/
Bitcoin dominance is climbing again
After bottoming in December 2024 at ~54%, BTC dominance has surged past 57% in January 2025.
This mirrors the 2020 cycle, where BTC dominance bottomed in Nov '20 (~60%), then rallied to 69% in Jan '21 before starting to decline again.
In the last cycle, Bitcoin dominance peaked near 72%. Shortly after, BTC hit ~$40K - over 2x its prior cycle's ATH - but still far from the eventual $64K top. Dominance began dropping as BTC's price soared, signalling a shift in risk appetite toward riskier assets.
View Major Asset Dominance 📈
At the moment, $125K marks the current upper limit of Bitcoin’s Short-Term Holder (STH) price action in bull market conditions, derived from an optimized framework using the STH cost basis ($88,517) as the baseline.
This approach accounts for Bitcoin’s evolving market conditions and shows that, in previous cycles, Bitcoin did not top before reaching this upper band - though it sometimes exceeded it temporarily.
In March 2024, the market tagged this level intra-cycle.
Currently, Bitcoin trades at $105,094 - 18.7% above the STH cost basis and well within bullish norms. However, if the price drops below $88,517, unrealized losses could trigger increased sell-side pressure.
Key thresholds for STHs:
- $125,653: Current upper band (bull market extremes).
- $88,517: Average cost basis.
- $68,549: Lower band (bear market lows).
As the STH cost basis rises, the upper band will adjust dynamically. Explore this chart here: https://glassno.de/4arR3bq
🔍 Optimizing Bitcoin MVRV Ratio for Refined Insights
Bitcoin’s market maturity is reflected in the declining peak values of its MVRV ratio, one of the key metrics for navigating market cycles:
🔹 2011: 8.07x
🔹 2014: 6.00x
🔹 2018: 4.81x
🔹 2021: 3.98x
🔹 2024: 2.78x (to date).
This trend highlights reduced volatility and speculative intensity as Bitcoin scales.
However, identifying actionable insights amid these diminishing peaks requires a more advanced approach.
At Glassnode, we’ve refined the MVRV Z-Score with optimized rolling windows, providing a more dynamic approach to analyzing market turning points.
Our latest analysis offers:
🔸Improved frameworks to navigate Bitcoin’s evolving market structure.
🔸Clearer thresholds for identifying bullish and bearish phases.
🔸Practical insights for institutional decision-making.
Explore how these insights can inform your strategy in our latest Week On-Chain.
As of January 13, 2025, stablecoin inflows have nearly stalled, with the market cap stabilizing at $189.1B and the 30-day net change down to +0.56%.
This marks a stark contrast to the November to December 2024 rally, when $27.35B in inflows (+16.9%) drove BTC from $67.8K to $106.1K (+56.5%), reaching a +10.67% 30-day net change at its peak.
By comparison, the January to March 2024 rally added $14.68B (+11.5%) in stablecoin liquidity, as BTC surged +74.5% to $69.5K. The fact that the late-2024 rally required almost 2x the capital inflow for a smaller price gain underscores the speculative demand and liquidity-driven momentum that has since cooled.
In total, $65B entered the space via stablecoins in 2024 - an amount comparable to the annual GDP of Lithuania.
Explore Stablecoins Aggregated Market Cap Percentage Change chart.
The U.S. Department of Justice is cleared to sell 69,000 BTC - worth over $6 billion.
With Glassnode, you can track government-held Bitcoin wallets and estimate the potential market impact if this kind of sell-side pressure occurs.
Putting it in perspective
In July 2024, the German government sold 56,000 BTC, but instead of collapsing, the market rallied from $53k to $68k.
However, past large inflows have had different results:
🔸 March 2021: 70.5k BTC inflows, NUPL at 0.72 (Euphoria/Greed)—short correction, then recovery.
🔹 June 2022: 68.7k BTC inflows, NUPL at 0.21 (Capitulation)—a prolonged bear market followed.
Bottom line: Market reactions depend heavily on where we are in the cycle.
With Glassnode’s US Government Balance metric, you can set alerts to be notified when coins move - helping you stay ahead of potential sell-offs.
🔗 Check it out: https://glassno.de/40ccXL7
The AI Agent sector is emerging as an important driver in the crypto market, but volatility remains a defining feature. Glassnode's Profitability Map offers insights to help you identify which assets have high profitability and whether profits are being realized—a potential indicator of market shifts.
Key Insights:
🔹VIRTUAL: Profitability at 2.00 with moderate profit-taking (0.58) indicates a heating phase where investors may begin locking in larger gains.
🔹PAAL: Profitability at 1.06 with moderate profit-taking (0.55) suggests cooling sentiment, with holders cautious about securing returns.
🔹PHA: Profitability of 0.90 but with significant profit-taking (1.17), indicating an increased desire to lock in profits.
🔹BOTTO: Heating up at 0.95 profitability and low profit-taking (0.27), showing a trend of investors holding rather than cashing out.
Get a deeper look at the broader market with our Profitability Dashboard: glassno.de/3DKybIx
The STH MVRV ratio for Bitcoin currently sits at 1.1, indicating that short-term holders are, on average, 10% in profit. This metric helps gauge the sentiment of recent market entrants, who tend to be more speculatively minded and react quickly to price volatility.
This year, the MVRV ratio for STHs peaked at 1.44 in March, dropped below 0.8 in September marking a local bottom, and reached the high of 1.35 in November.
It often pays off to watch the neutral level of 1 as it tends to act as support during uptrends but can flip to resistance if decisively broken, signaling a shift in sentiment.
In terms of price, the MVRV of 1.0 currently corresponds to a short-term holder cost basis of $87K. According to Cost Basis Distribution (CBD) data, there is an "air pocket" of demand between $87K and $71K. This potentially makes the $87K a make-or-break level for the short-term price action.
🔗 Relevant Charts:
STH MVRV Indicator: https://glassno.de/3Pp4BLn
Cost Basis Distribution (CBD) Data: https://glassno.de/cbd
1/ Cost Basis Distribution (CBD): A Key Insight for Investors
CBD measures the total Bitcoin supply held by addresses with an average cost basis within specific price ranges.
Key Observations:
- A dense cluster of supply exists between $88.1K-$103K.
- Since mid-December, we've been hovering near the lower band ($88.1K).
$98K buyers remain notably resilient despite market fluctuations.
- This region acts as a critical zone of interest for price action.
📊 https://glassno.de/4iWs04a
2/ The Air Gap: $70K-$88.1K
Above the dense cluster lies an "Air Gap" between $70K-$88.1K – an area with significantly lower supply concentration.
📉 Implication:
If the market enters a prolonged price contraction phase, this zone could act as a bottom discovery region, attracting new buyers eager to accumulate Bitcoin at a relative discount.
Keep a close eye on these levels—they hold the key to market resilience or deeper corrections.
📊 https://glassno.de/4iWs04a
Capital Momentum: BTC vs ETH vs SOL
The chart below shows the monthly percent change in Realized Cap for Bitcoin (BTC),Ethereum (ETH), and Solana (SOL).
This metric acts as an indicator of the rate and direction of capital inflows or outflows for these assets.
Diminishing Momentum on Solana 📉
During the recent market downtrend, the monthly rate of change in Realized Cap for SOL has plunged below both BTC and ETH.
This indicates a faster decline in momentum for Solana compared to the other two assets.
Current monthly Realized Cap Change (%/30D):
• BTC: +10.87%
• ETH: +5.43%
• SOL: +2.19%
📊 https://glassno.de/49WGptl
The last two years have been remarkable for Solana: a staggering price appreciation of +2,143%, outperforming Bitcoin and Ethereum on 344 out of 727 trading days since the FTX fall.
In our latest analysis, we utilize Glassnode’s new breakdown metrics for Solana to inspect and understand the underlying capital flows behind the dramatic ascent. Find out more: https://glassno.de/3Dqm9E9
We've enhanced our latest release of Solana to provide even better analytics: advanced metrics are live! Explore over 80 SOL metrics in Studio: https://glassno.de/SOL
The proportion of Bitcoin wealth held within recently moved supply has started to increase meaningfully in recent months.
This occurs as coins held by Long-Term Holders are distributed to new investors, which in turn highlights a surge in new demand-side activity.
Discover more in the latest Week On-Chain below 👇
glassno.de/41GJwn8
Solana vs Ethereum: Probing into the Demand Side
We can gauge demand-side momentum by tracking capital rotation via new investor activity, also known as Hot Realized Cap. The Hot Realized Cap measures the capital held by accounts active in the last 7 days.
1/ Solana Hot Realized Cap
For Solana, the positive market momentum coincided with a surge in its Hot Realized Cap starting in early October 2023.
📊: https://glassno.de/3BwmMvk
2/ Ethereum Hot Realized Cap
Unlike Solana, Ethereum's Hot Realized Cap did not see a significant spike off the 2022-2023 bear market floor. This demonstrates how demand for Solana outpaced Ethereum for most of 2024.
📊: https://glassno.de/3VHfhbE
3/ Demand Shift: SOL vs ETH
However, the recent period of ETH outperforming SOL has coincided with a surge in ETH's Hot Realized Cap starting in early November 2024.
New demand is clearly returning to ETH.
📊: https://glassno.de/49Lm8qy
Bitcoin Spending Power Law: A New Predictable Framework
Glassnode's new research reveals how Bitcoin holder behavior follows a power-law decay, offering a groundbreaking perspective on coin age and spending probabilities.
Executive Summary
- Spending probability drops by a factor of 10 for every tenfold increase in coin age, creating a measurable and predictable pattern.
- Coins held for over 3-4 years rarely move, signaling either strong conviction or potential loss.
- A simple heuristic predicts with 98% accuracy that coins younger than 7 days will move, providing actionable short-term insights.
This framework enables investors to segment holders into behavior-driven cohorts and track market sentiment with greater precision.
Read more in the full research report here.
📊 Bitcoin Market Cycle Update
Current ROI:
Here's how #Bitcoin’s ROI since cycle low compares to the last two cycles so far:
🔸 2015-2018: 5.90x
🔸 2018-2022: 10.47x
🔸 2022+ (current): 5.98x
The current cycle is 26.94% below the average ROI of the last two cycles (8.18x), highlighting the challenges of sustaining exponential growth as liquidity needs increase.
Bull Market Volatility:
Here’s how this bull market’s corrections compare to the previous cycles:
Average Drawdowns:
🔹 2022+: -7.68%
🔹 Overall: -16.24%
Max Drawdowns:
🔹 2022+: -26.25%
🔹 Overall: -71.15% (2011-2013)
This cycle stands out as the least volatile, with the mildest corrections compared to its predecessors.
Bitcoin’s evolution continues, balancing reduced volatility with steady growth as the market matures and becomes more institutionalized. 📈
The Cost Basis Distribution (CBD) metric reveals where Bitcoin supply has clustered at key price levels. Recent data shows $99,559 as the largest accumulation zone below $100K (a total of 125K BTC), while $96K–$98K, with 120K BTC accumulated, shapes up as a potential short-term support level.
CBD also highlights $101,669 (44K BTC) as a level to watch. While $99,559 shows stronger accumulation, it may act more as an area of interest than immediate resistance, depending on how market momentum evolves.
Typically exclusive to Professional plan users, the Cost Basis Distribution Heatmap is now accessible to Advanced plan users until the end of 2024. Explore it here: https://glassno.de/4ikd3ZA
The Week On-Chain, Week 3, 2025
Following two months of consolidation, Bitcoin has broken upwards from its rangebound conditions and surged to a new ATH of $109k. In this article, we evaluate the conditions leading into this move to demonstrate signals of impending volatility.
Executive Summary
🔸Capital flows into Bitcoin remain positive, although they have declined in magnitude since first reaching $100k. This highlights a period of declining sell-side pressure as the market approaches a near-term equilibrium.
🔹Sell-side pressure from long-term investors has also declined, alongside volumes deposited to exchanges for sale.
🔸Several measures of volatility are tightening up, with the market trading within a historically narrow 60-day price range, often a sign that the market is almost ready to move again.
Read Week On-Chain and discover more insights
📊 Bitcoin Supply in Unrealized Loss: Insights into Market Stress
Historically, the number of $BTC held in unrealized loss provides a reference point for assessing market stress:
🔸 Bull markets: <4M BTC in loss. 🔹 Early bear markets: 4–8M BTC in loss.
Last week, market volatility pushed 2.0–3.5M BTC into loss, still lower than the 4M BTC seen during mid-2024 lows.
For context: 🔻 2018 bear market: 10.7M BTC in loss. 🔻 2020 COVID crash: 10.4M BTC in loss.
📉 Another view: The Relative Unrealized Loss metric (unrealized losses relative to market cap) peaked at ~4.3% in Q3 2024 - far below the 10%+ levels seen during past external shocks like COVID or the 2021 China mining ban.
This highlights a more resilient market structure in the current cycle.
🔗 Dive deeper into the data here:
Total Supply in Loss
Entity-Adjusted Relative Unrealized Loss
The Week On-Chain 2, 2025
As the Bitcoin market corrects from the $108k ATH, a significant proportion of froth has come out of the market, whilst demand remains relatively robust. Unrealized losses are primarily held by short-term holders; however, stress levels are relatively modest compared to previous drawdowns.
Executive Summary
🔹Bitcoin has entered a correction phase, trading -11% below its ATH of $108k but remaining above key support levels, retaining a constructive market structure.
🔹Z-Score analysis suggests cyclical highs typically align with various metrics trading 1.5 to 2.0σ above the mean, offering a framework to help navigate bullish market phases.
🔹Bitcoin's current price is around 10% above the Short-Term Holders' cost basis of $88.4k, underscoring a potential risk of downside if momentum stalls and price trades below this level.
🔹Unrealized losses are concentrated among short-term holders, with 2.0–3.5M BTC held underwater.
Read the full Week On-Chain and discover more insights.
Following a period of distribution into the ATH, Bitcoin Shrimps (< 1 BTC) are now accumulating coins at a rate of +17.6k BTC/Month.
The cohort now holds around 1.36M BTC, equivalent to 6.9% of the circulating supply.
Shrimp Net Position Change Chart
Despite Bitcoin’s impressive rally last year, MVRV levels above 3.2 - typically associated with extreme euphoria - haven’t been reached this cycle yet. If BTC were to hit this level, it would correspond to a price tag of ~$132K.
📊 Historically, BTC price has spent only ~5% of trading days above this threshold, reinforcing why it’s viewed as a rare "extreme euphoria" zone.
❓ Will MVRV reach 3.2 this cycle? While momentum remains positive, with MVRV still above the 1-year MA (currently 2.18), one of the key questions is whether this trendline will plateau in the coming weeks - making MVRV momentum an important metric to monitor.
🔗 Explore the charts:
MVRV Pricing Bands
Historical MVRV Levels
MVRV Momentum
Perpetual Market Lagging Behind Momentum
Despite Bitcoin's strong rally from $93.5K on Jan 1 to $102.4K today, the Perpetual Funding Rates for the top 5 assets remain below neutral (0.01%):
BTC: 0.009%
ETH: 0.01%
SOL: 0.006%
XRP: 0.01%
DOGE: 0.011%
This suggests perpetual markets are lagging behind the current positive market momentum.
📊https://glassno.de/4gHafnZ
Ethereum Spot ETFs saw $2.05B in net inflows during December – the highest monthly total since inception. However, this influx of institutional capital wasn’t enough to shield ETH from downside volatility. The ultimately closed the month with a -10% loss.
https://glassno.de/3DI1mfy
Bitcoin Spot ETFs brought in $4.63B in December, well above the 2024 monthly average of $2.77B. Inflows were heavily concentrated in the first half of the month, while the second half saw outflows – with one notable exception on December 26. Despite reaching a new all-time high above $108K, BTC closed the month with a -3% performance.
https://glassno.de/4a00kHE
Key Highlights:
🔸Largest BTC ETF inflows: BlackRock’s $IBIT at $5.51B, followed by Fidelity’s $FBTC at $352.83M.
🔹Biggest BTC ETF outflows: Grayscale at -$997.59M, followed by Ark 21 Shares at -$193.94M.
https://glassno.de/4a00FKy
Despite the decline in Bitcoin price, the average Short-Term Holder continues to hold an unrealized profit (paper gain) of +7.9%.
Currently, their aggregate cost-basis resides at a value of $86.8k, marking this as a key region of interest for local price momentum.
For further information regarding the capital flows of the Short-Term Holder cohort, visit our Dashboard below👇
glassno.de/4gWoyVC
We observe that Solana has consistently maintained a positive net capital inflow since early September 2023, with only minor outflows during this period.
This sustained influx of liquidity has assisted in stimulating growth and price appreciation, achieving a remarkable peak inflow of $776M of new capital per day.
Discover more in our latest Solana research report👇
glassno.de/3Dqm9E9
Get an x-ray view of profitability and profit-taking across key assets with the Profitability Map. Track assets with increasing 🔴 or declining 🟢 profitability to anticipate market sentiment shifts before price moves.
📈 DEXE remains highly profitable (1.49), with slowing profit-taking momentum (0.51) and a heating trend. A realized profit spike between Dec 2-9 was followed by modest activity, suggesting holders see potential value.
📉 YFII is strongly cooling, with both profitability and realized profits declining, reflecting reduced cash-out opportunities amid slowing momentum.
Typically a Professional plan dashboard, it's now available to Advanced plan users until March 31, 2025. Explore: https://glassno.de/map
The Week On-Chain 51, 2024
Bitcoin continues trading above the psychologically important $100k price level, supported by a consistent inflow of capital. Long-Term Holders are capitalizing on this liquidity, taking the opportunity to distribute supply at scale, setting a new ATH in profit realized of $2.1B.
Executive Summary
- Bitcoin’s price trajectory shows striking similarities across cycles despite vastly different market scales and dynamics.
- With price trading above $100k for weeks, Long-Term Holders are distributing supply, setting a new ATH in realized profit of $2.1B.
- Most profit-taking comes from coins aged 6m-12m, while older coins remain relatively dormant.
- New investors now hold a larger share of network wealth, reflecting robust demand and a shift away from longer-term HODLers.
Read more in The Week On-Chain newsletter.
Looking at price performance, SOL outpaced both ETH and BTC for most of Q4 2024. However, since early December, ETH has taken the lead, outperforming the other two assets.
30-day performance:
ETH: +26.96%
BTC: +17.49%
SOL: +1.61%
A clear shift in momentum. 📊 https://glassno.de/4ggZUiw
Analyzing the weekly Realized Cap—a proxy for capital flow—SOL expanded faster than BTC and ETH until early December (over +5%).
Since then, BTC has taken the lead, with ETH outpacing SOL:
BTC: +1.89%
SOL: +1.11%
ETH: +1.03%
Capital flows and price trends have shifted. The tides have turned.
📊: https://glassno.de/4fkLyMz
The Week On-Chain 50, 2024
Bitcoin’s journey from the Genesis Block to $100k per BTC is a historic moment and a new high watermark in adoption. With 19.8M BTC mined, $131T in transfer volume processed, and 1.12B transactions, the $100k price milestone is yet another sign of Bitcoin's resilience.
Executive Summary
- The Bitcoin price crossed the $100k mark for the first time on 5 December, after 5,256 trading days, and hitting a market cap briefly exceeding $2 Trillion.
- Miners have earned a cumulative $71.49 Billion since inception, reflecting the network's robust security and economic incentives.
- The network has processed a total of 1.12 Billion transactions and settled $131.25 Trillion in transfer volume, with entity-adjusted figures providing an even clearer view of genuine economic activity.
- A breakdown of supply held by various cohorts highlights a broad distribution of Bitcoin ownership, ranging from retail investors to institutional-scale holders.
Read more in The Week On-Chain newsletter.
Bitcoin’s market cycles are marked by a gradual transition of wealth from long-term holders to short-term holders. This dynamic is playing out similarly in the current cycle but with additional nuances due to the influence of spot ETFs:
As long-term holders are typically defined as those holding Bitcoin for at least 155 days, many early ETF-driven buyers now fall into this category.
🔹 Spot ETF buyers, who began accumulating heavily early in the year, swelled the 6-12 month cohort to 25% by August. Since October, this group has reduced to 16%, possibly due profit-taking by these newer market participants.
🔹 A more concerning trend is the decline in the 1-2 year and 2-3 year cohorts, which represent seasoned holders who accumulated during the June-November 2022 market bottoming phase. Their distribution suggests we are transitioning toward the later stages of the cycle.
🔹 Holders from the 3-5 year cohort remain relatively stable at ~13.9%, indicating that these holders don’t yet seem incentivized to sell.
Bitcoin briefly advanced above $100K - a historic milestone - but the move was short-lived. Where could the retracement stop? Glassnode’s new Cost Basis Distribution (CBD) metric offers on-chain insights into accumulation and distribution patterns, helping to spot critical price levels.
What is CBD? CBD is a heatmap that shows the total Bitcoin supply grouped by the average cost basis of investors at specific price levels. By visualizing where cost bases are concentrated, CBD helps identify key zones of support and resistance based on investor behavior.
Example Insight
The $96K–$98K range saw over 101K BTC accumulated, solidifying it as a strong support zone. Above $98K, ~81K BTC was acquired, forming short-term resistance. Below $96K, limited activity suggests weak support if prices retrace.
With CBD, you can move beyond price and volume data to analyze investor behavior and identify critical zones of interest with more precision. Learn more about CBD and how to use it here: https://glassno.de/4ijpUex