Signal of the week: The share of short-term holder supply sitting in profit recently hit 71% — the highest level since Bitcoin’s all-time high in October 2025. Although this sounds bullish, history suggests that the urge to take profits is also rising.
Bitcoin is hovering near $80,000, giving short-term holders their best week in months in terms P/L. However, this is also the exact line that will decide whether this is a genuine breakout or just another failed attempt.
About the Bitcoin Impact Index
The Bitcoin Impact Index measures which groups of Bitcoin holders are under financial stress, how severe that stress is, and whether it’s severe enough to shake confidence in the market’s direction. It combines on-chain holder behaviour, ETF and derivatives activity, and exchange-level liquidity flows into a single weekly score between 0 and 100. Unlike sentiment indicators, it deliberately excludes social media and volume data to focus on what participants are doing rather than what they are saying.
Score bands:
- Normal Rotation (0–24) — routine profit-taking, no structural shift
- Elevated Repositioning (25–49) — specific groups shifting positions, pressure uneven across the market
- High Impact (50–74) — broad stress across multiple holder groups and institutional flows simultaneously
- Critical Impact (75–100) — full capitulation: LTH losses, large ETF outflows, major liquidations, and heavy exchange inflows at once
Week 19 (May 4–10): BII 35.6 — Elevated Repositioning
Positive signals: the cleanest liquidity picture of 2026
Stablecoin flows swung from –$242M daily average last week to +$270M — the largest single-week reversal in 2026 and the strongest positive stablecoin reading since March. Fresh capital is again arriving at exchanges and positioning to buy, which supports the bullish momentum.
At the same time, realized loss density collapsed to 13%, one of the lowest readings in 2026. This indicates that holders who are selling are primarily doing so in profit or near breakeven, not at distress levels.
Mixed signals: short-term holders are at a decision point
The share of short-term holder supply sitting in profit briefly hit 71% — the highest level since Bitcoin’s all-time high in October 2025. On the surface that is great news. But it also means profit-taking pressure is building at its fastest rate since the market peak. Realised profit volumes are relatively stable right now, meaning holders are not rushing to exit yet — but the incentive to lock in gains is getting increasingly higher.
LTH SOPR slipped back below 1, meaning long-term holders who did move coins this week did so at a small loss. However, long-term holders also added another 83,000 BTC to their wallets this week, suggesting that this could be associated with an increased cost of accumulation.
What could happen next
Bitcoin is currently testing its short-term holder cost basis around $80,000 — the price at which the average recent buyer moves from loss to profit. If Bitcoin sustains above it, this could push the price toward $85,750, which corresponds to the 0.382 Fibonacci retracement from the all-time high.
If the price breaks $85,750 as well, it would invalidate the bearish retracement pattern that played out in January, when Bitcoin recovered to the 0.382 Fibonacci level before resuming its decline.
However, if price fails to hold $80,000 and pulls back, the next meaningful support sits at $76,250, which corresponds to the 0.236 Fibonacci level. That scenario would suggest that short-term holders end up using the current prices as the opportunity to fix profits.
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