LTH Realized Profit/Loss

How to read LTH Realized Profit/Loss

When a coin moves on-chain, the difference between the price it last moved at and the price today is profit or loss that has just been realized — locked in rather than merely on paper. This chart counts only coins that had sat unmoved for more than 155 days, the threshold at which Bitcoin's holders are classified as long-term, and nets their profit against their loss each day.

Dollar amounts are not comparable across Bitcoin's history — $100M of realized profit meant something very different in 2015 than it does today — so the figure is divided by market cap.

LTH Realized P/L = (long-term holder realized profit − their realized loss) ÷ market cap

Long-term holders are the cohort with the most to sell and the least reason to panic. When they consistently realise profit, they are handing coins to newer buyers at prices they consider good — the definition of distribution, and one of the most-watched signs that a bull market is maturing. When they realise losses, holders who have waited years are giving up, which is rare and historically close to the bottom.

• Below -0.05% — Deep Value — Long-term holders are selling below cost. Roughly the bottom 5% of all days since 2012.
• -0.05% to 0% — Undervalued — Spending is around break-even. Typical of quiet accumulation, when the coins that move are not moving for profit.
• 0% to +0.039% — Fair Price — Modest profit-taking in line with the historical norm. Ordinary background distribution.
• +0.039% to +0.134% — Elevated — Above-average profit-taking. Sustained readings here mark a maturing bull market, though they can persist for months before a top.
• Above +0.134% — High Risk — Extreme profit-taking relative to market size, roughly the top 5% of days. Old coins bought far cheaper are being sold into strength.

Thresholds are the historical quantiles of this cohort's own distribution, not of the aggregate. Long-term holders turn over a much smaller share of the market per day than recent buyers, so this scale is about half as wide as the one on STH Realized Profit/Loss — the two are not directly comparable by value, only by zone.

Read alongside LTH-SOPR, which measures the same spending as a profit ratio rather than a dollar flow, and Net Realized Profit/Loss, which nets both cohorts into a single line.