Bitcoin Cycle Isn’t Over: Realized Price Bands Reveal Holder Stress Above Critical Support Levels

Bitcoin's not dead yet—holder wallets are telling a different story.

Forget the panic on your timeline. The real action is happening beneath the surface, in the silent ledger of realized price bands. These metrics—often ignored by the headline-chasing crowd—are flashing a stubborn signal: long-term holders are still clinging on, even as prices wobble above key psychological levels.

The Stress Test

Realized price isn't about today's market tick. It's the average price at which all existing coins last moved. When the spot price dips below this level, the average holder is underwater. Right now, analysis shows the market hovering precariously above several of these aggregated cost bases. That's the stress zone. It's where weak hands typically break and sell, creating capitulation events that often mark cycle bottoms—or painful continuations.

Why This Cycle Feels Different

This isn't 2018's brutal crash or 2022's cascading leverage implosion. The stress is more distributed, more nuanced. Large cohorts of coins acquired at different price points are being tested simultaneously. The bands are holding, but the pressure is audible. It suggests a market maturing—or one being slowly drained of momentum. The 'HODLer' meme faces its greatest practical exam: conviction versus the cold calculus of an unrealized loss.

A Provocative Close

So, is the cycle over? The data screams 'not yet.' True cycle endings usually arrive with mass surrender, a clean break below these foundational cost levels that resets the board. We're seeing strain, not breakage. That means more volatility, more tests of resolve, and likely more boring sideways action that tries the soul of every moon-bound speculator. The patient accumulate in these phases; the impatient fund the next leg up for everyone else. Just remember—on Wall Street, they call this 'price discovery.' In crypto, we call it Tuesday. And somewhere, a VC is probably writing a blog post calling this 'healthy deleveraging' while their portfolio quietly bleeds out.

Realized Price Bands Show Where Bitcoin’s Stress Is Building

Bitcoin’s current drawdown is not creating uniform stress across the market. Instead, pressure is building unevenly across different holder cohorts, based on their realized price levels. In the current setup, spot price sits NEAR $95,583, while the 1w–1m cohort realized price is $89,255 and the 1m–3m cohort is $93,504.

That means newer short-term holders are still in profit, which is an important stabilizing factor. When the most recent buyers are rewarded rather than punished, downside follow-through tends to weaken, because fear does not compound at the margin.

However, the pressure is concentrated in older short-term cohorts. The 3m–6m realized price stands at $114,808, and the 6m–12m cohort sits near $100,748, placing both groups underwater. This suggests Bitcoin has not been aggressively redistributed at lower levels, since a large portion of mid-term holders remains trapped above spot. The market is showing discomfort, but not capitulation, with losses being absorbed through patience rather than forced selling.

If Bitcoin begins reclaiming the 6m–12m realized price, that cohort’s stress could ease quickly. Still, sustainability depends on psychology. Mid-term holders must view this phase as a temporary drawdown, not a structural breakdown. If that belief breaks, selling pressure can appear even stronger.

Bitcoin Slides Below Key Support As Bulls Defend the Range

Bitcoin is under pressure again after failing to hold above the mid-$95,000 zone, with price now trading near $93,000. The chart shows a sharp rejection from the recent local high, followed by a clean move lower that has erased a large portion of the latest rebound. This shift suggests that upside momentum remains fragile, even after the market briefly reclaimed higher levels earlier in January.

From a structure perspective, BTC is now back inside the broader consolidation range that formed after the late November sell-off. The recent bounce looked constructive at first, but the inability to sustain follow-through above resistance has brought sellers back into control. Volume has picked up on the decline, which typically reflects stronger conviction compared to slow pullbacks.

Bitcoin is also trading below its major moving averages on this timeframe, reinforcing the idea that the broader trend remains heavy until bulls reclaim key levels. In the near term, the market must hold support in the low-$92,000 to $93,000 region to avoid another liquidation-driven drop.

If bulls can stabilize price here, BTC may attempt another push toward $95,000. However, repeated rejections increase the risk of a deeper breakdown.

Featured image from ChatGPT, chart from TradingView.com