Bitcoin soars past the $100,000 mark, and the market is as hot as a furnace! But hold on, on-chain data reveals a different flavor: the behavior of long-term and short-term holders is quietly changing, with some beginning to 'cash out,' suggesting the market may face a wave of stress testing.

Are even the diamond hands wavering? Long-term holder costs surge

On-chain analyst Murphy recently made a big revelation: the average cost of long-term holders (LTH) is rapidly increasing and has now soared to $31,000! There are two reasons behind this:

Some short-term holders (STH) who entered at high prices have 'endured' to become LTH, thereby raising the overall cost;

What’s more disheartening is that those 'old chips' with absurdly low costs in the market are being sold off, which naturally pushes the average cost up.

This is quite rare! LTHs have always been the 'diamond hands' of the Bitcoin community, holding onto their coins no matter what, with average costs generally stable as a rock. Now, however, the fluctuations are as wild as a rollercoaster (the 7-day cost change rate has reached 9.57%, far surpassing STH's 0.4%), which is startling enough to leave people confused.

Looking back to August 2024, when Japan's interest rate hike led to a collapse in yen arbitrage trading, LTHs also had a similar big move, spurred by a black swan event that sent everyone scrambling. What about this time? Murphy guesses that some LTHs might feel that the price has peaked now, fearing that it won't rise further, so they might as well cash out and secure profits.

Short-term holders busy counting money, market pressure looming

At the same time, Glassnode's latest weekly report also chimed in: short-term holders (STH) have recently been raking in profits, with realized gains climbing and reaching +3 standard deviations above the 90-day average. What does this indicate? Short-term players are busy selling coins and counting money, and the pressure to take profits is becoming hard to resist!

However, Glassnode calmly added: Don't panic! Looking at history, every time Bitcoin rushes towards a new all-time high (ATH), the realized profits of STH usually soar to over +5 standard deviations. Now at +3, we are still a way from 'extreme madness,' suggesting that the market may still have room to rise, and demand has not yet reached a depletion point.