Bitcoin Holders Show No Panic Loss Selling, What Does It Mean?

On-chain data shows that Bitcoin investors aren’t participating in any significant amounts of loss selling right now. Here’s what it may mean.

Bitcoin Entity-Adjusted Realized Loss Has Remained Low Recently

According to data from the on-chain analytics firm Glassnode, coins transacted recently were mostly acquired close to the current spot price. The relevant indicator here is the “entity-adjusted realized loss,” which measures the total loss investors realize through their current selling.

This metric works by going through the on-chain history of each being sold to see what price it was bought at. If this previous price for any coin was more than the current spot price (that it’s now being moved at), then the coin’s sale is leading to the realization of a loss. Naturally, the coin would be moving at a profit in the opposite case.

The indicator has “entity-adjusted” because it only counts transactions/sales between different entities rather than individual wallets. An entity here refers to a single or a group of addresses controlled by the same investor, as determined by Glassnode’s analysis.

As transfers between the addresses of the same investor wouldn’t count as selling, it makes sense to filter such transfers out of the data for the realized loss.

Now, here is a chart that shows the trend in the Bitcoin entity-adjusted realized loss over the last few years:

The value of the metric seems to have been moving sideways in recent days | Source: Glassnode on Twitter

As the above graph shows, the Bitcoin entity-adjusted realized loss has been at relatively low values for a few months. The rally in the cryptocurrency’s price has taken place during this period, so it would make sense that investors wouldn’t have any need to sell at a loss while the surge has gone on.

However, recently, things have been different. BTC has been going down during the past few weeks, but there has still not been any change in the indicator’s value. This is unlike what’s generally observed during drawdowns in the asset.

Even earlier in the current year, when the rally had temporarily taken a hiatus in March and the cryptocurrency’s value had seen a deep plunge, there was an uplift in the realized loss, although not anything too significant. The recent low values are also despite the FUD that has spread around the sector following the SEC charges against Binance and Coinbase.

In the past day, the market has again stumbled as the Fed has revealed its decision to pause interest rate hikes for now but has also communicated that more increases would be coming later in the year.

Despite this fresh hit that the Bitcoin price has taken, the realized loss has still not registered any uptick, as its value is still just $91.3 million, significantly less than in past capitulation events.

The fact that investors haven’t started selling at a loss would imply that there is still not enough panic in the market yet; investors holding at a loss are content to ride the current market phaseout.

BTC Price

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading around $25,000, down 5% in the last week.

Looks like BTC has observed a sharp drop today | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView

Featured image from Thought Catalog on Unsplash.com, charts from TradingView.com, Glassnode.com