Bitcoin’s share of addresses sitting at a loss has dropped sharply, and on-chain analyst Crypto Dan says moves of that size have historically ended bear markets rather than just producing a short bounce.
The call went out following two macro jolts that hit crypto: a Fed rate hike and a stalled Senate vote on the CLARITY Act.
Why the On-Chain Picture Looks Different
Crypto Dan’s argument centers on UTXOs, the individual chunks of BTC in wallets, and how many currently sit below what their holders paid for them.
That share has fallen by a wide margin, and the analyst pointed to past cycles where drops of a similar size didn’t just produce a brief bounce; they closed out the bear phase entirely.
“Looking at previous market cycles, declines of this scale have represented more than just short-term rebounds,” he wrote. “They have shown enough momentum to bring bearish phases to an end and transition the market into a bullish cycle.”
He flagged the rate hike and the CLARITY Act’s failure as near-term risks, but argued that neither had been enough to undo the shift already underway.
Darkfost’s read on the chain data lines up with that. Bitcoin is holding above $71,300, a cost basis that only counts units actively moving through the market, and Darkfost noted this level got tested twice near the end of the 2023 bear market before the next cycle took off.
On the other side sits $79,800, the break-even point for invested capital, where BTC keeps getting rejected, a pattern the market watcher also traced back to that same 2023 stretch. That leaves Bitcoin stuck between the two levels.
At the time of writing, BTC was trading above $76,000, up about 1% on the day but down nearly 3% for the week. If you zoom out, the picture flips, with the OG cryptocurrency up 19% in the past month even after sliding almost 35% over the last year, to put it about 39% below its all-time high from last October.
Volume has cooled too, and was down close to 24% in a day to about $29.5 billion.
The Week’s Two Macro Jolts Barely Moved the Market
The two events Crypto Dan flagged already happened. The Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act on September 15, falling short of the 60 votes needed. Bitcoin dropped on the news, then the Fed raised rates by 25 basis points the next day, its first hike in three years, and the asset climbed above $76,000.
Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan said the rally has little to do with regulation, noting that BTC rose about 38% between July and mid-September even as betting markets cut CLARITY Act odds from 39% to 18%.
Meanwhile, trader Matthew Hyland mocked predictions that the failed vote and rate hike would send Bitcoin to $50,000, when it held near $76,000, with longtime BTC advocate David Bailey calling the muted reaction the strongest sign yet that the bear market is over, saying traders are in a “bad news doesn’t matter phase.”
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