Glassnode：暗号資産市場、底値固めの後期段階に入る

Original Authors: CryptoVizArt, Frederik Theissen, Glassnode

Original Translation Compiled by: Luffy, Foresight News

Bitcoin prices have remained below the Realized Price and the Short-Term Holder Cost Basis for five consecutive months, placing the asset in a deeply undervalued range.

Currently, the proportion of realized losses attributed to Long-Term Holders relative to the total on-chain realized losses has risen to 43%. The peak daily realized losses reached $280 million, the highest level since December 2022. Outflows from spot ETFs have moderated but continue on a monthly net outflow basis; average daily ETF trading volume remains in the $650 million to $950 million range, approximately 80% lower than the peak in October 2025, indicating that institutional buying demand has yet to stabilize.

Derivatives positioning has shifted to cautious bullishness, with the Put/Call ratio hitting a year-to-date low. However, the options volatility surface still maintains a defensive premium, and the spot price is significantly below the Max Pain level. The market has entered the late stages of bottoming, and a sustained contraction in selling pressure from Long-Term Holders is a crucial prerequisite for a trend reversal and recovery.

Macro Overview

Crude Oil Surges, Risk Assets Under Pressure

Over the past seven trading days, WTI crude oil has accumulated a gain of 7.9%, with the majority of the increase occurring recently, triggered by reports that the US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding has expired. This shock has impacted all asset markets. Bitcoin's weekly high saw a gain of 9.4%, but it has since retreated to a weekly gain of 5%. The S&P 500 and Euro Stoxx indices have turned negative, with European stocks leading the decline among global risk assets. Currently, Bitcoin's price action is highly correlated with risk assets.

Liquidity Environment: Intensifying Bull-Bear Contradiction

Amid the external shock from crude oil, the market liquidity environment presents a fragmented picture. The US broad money supply M2 has climbed to an all-time high of $22.8 trillion. Historically, periods of broad money expansion tend to boost market risk appetite. However, the Federal Reserve's balance sheet continues to shrink, currently $2 trillion lower than its 2023 peak. These two liquidity signals create a strong hedge: the broad money supply continues to rise, while quantitative tightening continues, with real interest rates hovering around 1%, keeping the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding digital assets high. The window for macro-level positive catalysts is not entirely closed, but neither has it formed a clear accommodative support.

On-Chain Data

A Five-Month Deeply Undervalued Zone

Over the past week, Bitcoin rebounded from $58,300 to $64,400, showing some short-term recovery. However, the price remains significantly below the Realized Price of $76,600 and the Short-Term Holder Cost Basis of $72,200. Only when the price reclaims these two key levels can the market escape the deeply undervalued zone; otherwise, the market remains susceptible to declines driven by external negative catalysts.

The duration of this discount period is noteworthy. Since early February 2026, the price has been trading below the cost basis of active investors and the breakeven level of recent entrants for nearly five months, representing one of the longer periods of deep discount in Bitcoin's history.

This prolonged period of discount, where coins change hands and new capital accumulates below the cost basis of previous buyers and the overall active market cost level, is historically fundamental for forming a cyclical bottom and offers attractive long-term allocation potential for value investors. Various indicators suggest the bottoming process is in its late stages, but the possibility of a retest around $53,000 cannot be entirely ruled out.

Concentrated Stop-Loss by High-Cost-Basis Long-Term Holders

The market is building a cyclical bottom, and the core question is identifying the primary source of downward selling pressure. The relative indicator of realized P&L between Long-Term and Short-Term Holders, which measures the distribution of total on-chain realized profits and losses between these two groups, clearly shows the proportion of gains and losses realized by each cohort.

After the price broke below the Realized Price, the 30-day moving average of the proportion of realized losses from Long-Term Holders climbed from 15% in early February 2026 to the current 43%. The stop-loss selling pressure generated by this group's unrealized losses has become the most dominant bearish force suppressing prices.

Most of these investors entered the market near the cyclical highs. After months of deep retracement, their holding conviction has been gradually exhausted, leading to a concentrated exit. This ownership structure directly explains why every rebound attempt encounters concentrated selling from deeply underwater holders, preventing the price from stabilizing above the current range.

Stop-Loss Selling Pressure Shows No Signs of Abating Yet

With realized losses from Long-Term Holders becoming the main downward pressure, the next key observation is whether this selling pressure begins to fade.

The entity-adjusted Long-Term Holder Realized Loss indicator (30-day smoothed moving average), which measures the loss amount generated by selling addresses holding coins for over 155 days (excluding internal transfers), accurately reflects genuine stop-loss exit behavior. This indicator recently recorded a peak single-day realized loss of approximately $280 million, the highest since December 2022, marking the second major wave of Long-Term Holder capitulation in this bear market.

A key difference is that after the first wave of capitulation peaked, selling pressure showed a phased decline. However, this current wave of selling has yet to show a contraction in scale. Only a clear downtrend in this indicator can establish the foundational conditions for a market shift towards a bull run. In the coming weeks to months, the trajectory of this indicator will be a core signal for judging whether the market has truly completed its selling pressure flush-out.

Off-Chain Market

ETF Outflows Slow, But Trend Unreversed

Transitioning from on-chain to off-chain markets, spot ETF capital flows provide a direct view of institutional capital behavior. The 30-day moving average of ETF net flows smooths out daily fluctuations, revealing the underlying trend in institutional positioning.

Since mid-May 2026, this indicator has entered a monthly net outflow zone. The daily outflow peaked at $193 million in early June and has since moderated to a daily net outflow of $88.9 million. The slowdown in outflow scale is a mildly positive sign, but the market continues to bleed capital on a monthly basis, and institutional buying demand has yet to stabilize. Only when capital flows consistently narrow into a balanced range can we anticipate expansionary upside moves in the short term.

Institutional Trading Volume Remains Low

Beyond net flow data, the trading volume of US spot ETFs helps gauge the recovery of institutional confidence. The 30-day moving average of average daily ETF trading volume currently fluctuates between $650 million and $950 million. This level is comparable to Q4 2024 but is approximately 80% lower than the peak average daily volume of $4.4 billion recorded in October 2025.

Current volume levels represent only baseline institutional participation, remaining extremely subdued compared to bull market peaks, indicating that medium-to-long-term bullish conviction among ETF investors has not materially returned. Only a sustained increase in average daily volume, coupled with a continuous narrowing of net capital outflows—both signals appearing simultaneously—can confirm a recovery in institutional demand. Until both types of indicators improve concurrently, off-chain data corroborates on-chain metrics, suggesting the market remains largely within a bearish dominant structure.

Derivatives Market

Short Squeeze, Positioning Shifts to Cautious Longs

Beneath the weakening risk sentiment, derivatives positioning has already shown a contrary shift. The Put/Call ratio for open options interest has fallen to 0.56, the lowest level in 2026, meaning there are currently roughly two call options for every one put option. Options flow data confirms this trend: during the second test of lows two weeks ago, the market aggressively bought put options for hedging, causing the Put/Call volume ratio to spike. As call order flow has since returned, this ratio has rapidly declined, even though spot prices have only partially recovered their losses.

Perpetual swap funding rates also corroborate the shift in positioning. The average perpetual funding rate remains persistently below the 0.01% bull-bear equilibrium line, far from levels seen in crowded long positions. The derivatives market has completed its short-risk flush-out and has turned cautiously bullish in the face of external negative shocks, a complete reversal from the crowded short positioning structure seen prior to the recent sharp decline.

Options Surface Still Prices in Downside Risk

While overall positioning leans bullish, the options volatility surface gives a contradictory signal. The 25-delta skew indicator (premium for downside protection relative to upside exposure) maintains a premium across all tenors. Each downward leg this year has pushed this premium higher. At the end of June, this indicator surged to 24%, the strongest defensive sentiment in near-term contracts since the February sell-off. Even with the market's overall positioning tilted towards longs, traders are still willing to pay a premium for downside hedging instruments.

Spot Price Diverges from Max Pain Level

Beyond positioning and skew, the relative position of the spot price within the options market structure provides further clues. Currently, the Bitcoin spot price is approximately 6% below the aggregate Max Pain level of $66,000. The Max Pain point is the strike price where the maximum number of open options contracts expire worthless, and prices tend to gravitate towards this level near expiration.

This week's decline widened the gap between the spot price and the Max Pain level, but the deviation is far less extreme than during the February sell-off, merely sitting in the middle of the 2026 trading range. Throughout this year, the Max Pain level has consistently acted as a gravitational center for price action, with the spot price oscillating around it and rarely deviating significantly for long. If the price can stabilize above $66,000, short-term signals would turn more optimistic. If the divergence widens further, it would reinforce the overall defensive trading sentiment observed in the options market.

Cost of Crash Hedging Continues to Decline

While signals from volatility skew and positioning structure show divergence, the absolute cost of hedging downside risk presents a clear trend. With the market's modest rebound, the pricing of the one-month volatility curve's put side has shifted lower overall. The implied volatility for out-of-the-money puts situated 5% below the spot price has dropped significantly. The lowest pricing points on the volatility curve are currently concentrated in far-dated call options.

Although a general defensive sentiment persists in the market, the absolute cost traders pay for downside hedging has notably decreased. This trend becomes clearer over a longer timeframe: the volatility premium driven by extreme put-hedging demand during the sell-offs in February and June has gradually subsided as we entered July. The DVOL volatility index has dropped to a 12-month low, indicating the market has entered a low-volatility regime. While caution still dominates the market, hedging demand is gradually waning.

Summary

Synthesizing data from on-chain, off-chain, and derivatives dimensions, the market clearly displays characteristics of a late-stage bear market.

On-chain data shows a five-month-long deep undervaluation cycle persists, with daily stop-loss realization by Long-Term Holders rising to $280 million, indicating a large-scale transfer of coins. However, a sustained decline in this capitulation metric is a necessary prerequisite for an effective trend reversal.

Off-chain data indicates ETF outflows have narrowed from their June peak, but monthly net outflows continue. Average daily trading volume is down 80% from the October 2025 peak, reflecting low institutional bullish conviction.

From the derivatives perspective, market positioning has shifted to cautious bullishness, with the Put/Call ratio hitting a year-to-date low. However, the volatility skew and options surface continue to price in downside risk.

Synthesizing all indicators, the foundational conditions required for the market to bottom are largely in place, but the core confirming signals for a bottom are not yet present. The subsequent market direction requires the fulfillment of three key conditions: sustained cooling of stop-loss selling pressure from Long-Term Holders, stabilization of institutional capital flows, and an effective reclaim of the Realized Price level. Only upon these conditions being met will the probability of a transition to a bull cycle significantly increase.