Holder Cost Basis Bands

How to read the Holder Cost Basis Bands

Every coin on the Bitcoin network last moved at some price, and that price is recorded on-chain. Average those prices across a group of holders and you get that group's cost basis — what they collectively paid. This chart draws two of them under the price: the short-term holder cost basis (coins that last moved within the past 155 days) and the long-term holder cost basis (everything older).

Those two lines behave very differently. The short-term line tracks close to price, because recent buyers bought recently — it acts as support in an uptrend and as a ceiling in a downtrend. The long-term line moves slowly and lags by years, so price falling beneath it means even Bitcoin's most patient owners are underwater.

Headline number = price ÷ short-term holder cost basis. The zone also checks the long-term line, which is what the ratio alone cannot see.

• Below the LTH cost basis — Deep Value — Long-term holders are underwater. Bitcoin has spent only about 11% of its history since 2012 in this state, and those stretches contain the lows of January 2015, December 2018 and November 2022.
• Below 0.95x the STH cost basis — Undervalued — Recent buyers are underwater but long-term holders are not. The usual shape of a correction inside a larger uptrend, or of an early recovery.
• 0.95x to 1.18x — Fair Price — Price is around what recent buyers paid. The transition band, where the short-term line flips between support and resistance.
• 1.18x to 1.40x — Elevated — Recent buyers hold a solid unrealised gain. Normal and sustainable in an active bull market, but it is profit that gets taken when confidence breaks.
• Above 1.40x — High Risk — Price is far ahead of recent buyers' cost. December 2017 printed 2.12x and April 2021 printed 1.43x; every prior market eventually reverted toward this line rather than holding above it.

The two lines can invert. After a cycle top the long-term cost basis sits above the short-term one — long-term holders bought high, while recent buyers bought the crash — so price can be above the short-term line and still below the long-term line. That is a genuine capitulation reading, and the zone treats it as one.

This is the raw-price view of the same cohorts that STH-MVRV and LTH-MVRV express as ratios. Those tell you how stretched each cohort's profit is; this shows you the actual levels, which is what price has to cross.