Bitcoin Bullish: Trader Profit-Taking

On-chain data shows the Bitcoin short-term holders have only been taking minimal profits recently despite the asset’s latest rally.

Bitcoin Short-Term Holder SOPR Is Currently At Relatively Low Levels

As pointed out by an analyst in a CryptoQuant Quicktake post, the short-term holder SOPR is still under the range that has signaled overheated conditions for the asset during the past year.

The “Spent Output Profit Ratio” (SOPR) here refers to an indicator that tells us about whether the Bitcoin investors as a whole are selling their coins at a profit or loss.

When the value of this metric is greater than 1, it means the average holder on the network is transferring their coins at a net profit. On the other hand, it being under this mark implies loss-taking is dominant.

In the context of the current discussion, the SOPR of a specific segment of the BTC userbase is of interest: the short-term holders (STHs). This cohort includes the BTC investors who bought their coins within the past 155 days.

Statistically, the longer an investor holds onto their coins, the less likely they become to sell them at any point. As the STHs are relatively young holders, they don’t carry much resilience, and thus, can be prone to panic selling whenever a major change occurs in the market, like a rally or crash.

Now, here is a chart that shows the trend in the Bitcoin STH SOPR over the past year or so:

As displayed in the above graph, the Bitcoin STH SOPR has been above the 1 level recently, suggesting that this group has been realizing a net amount of profit with their transactions.

With the latest bullish push that BTC has seen beyond the $71,000 level, the metric has seen some uplift, as the STHs have ramped up their profit-taking. The indicator is now sitting at 1.017.

It’s apparent from the chat, however, that this is not actually that high a value. According to the quant, the indicator has shown to be overheated whenever it has broken 1.03 during the recent phase of consolidation. The latest value has clearly been under this mark.

As such, the rally could have more room to grow, before the profit-taking from the STHs becomes a threat. This is only assuming that the same 1.03 boundary would apply to the current market as well, since the STH SOPR had been able to visit much higher levels before Bitcoin had encountered a top in March of this year.

The indicator could be to monitor in the coming days, as where it goes next could provide hints about where the cryptocurrency’s price might also be going.

BTC Price

Sitting at the $71,200 level, Bitcoin is now not far from surpassing the high witnessed back in June.