The share of Bitcoin (BTC) supply in profit was 60.6% on Thursday, after sliding to 50.8% on Feb. 5 — its lowest since Jan. 2, 2023 — leaving many holders at breakeven or underwater. Historically, similar profitability ranges have coincided with cycle resets that preceded large rallies: in January 2023, BTC traded near $16,682 when supply-in-profit hovered around 51% before later surging; likewise, in March 2020 supply-in-profit dropped below 50% while BTC was near $6,500 ahead of the 2021 run to previous highs.
Across the past five years the 50–60% supply-in-profit band has repeatedly marked periods where a large portion of holders sat close to cost basis, compressing unrealized gains and reducing short-term selling incentives. That said, the metric signals a zone of accumulated holdings rather than a precise price bottom.
Previous cycle bottoms occurred when long-term holder net unrealized profit/loss (LTH‑NUPL) turned negative — seen in 2015, 2018 and 2022 — indicating long-term investors were holding at a loss. By contrast, current LTH‑NUPL sits near 0.40, meaning long-term holders remain comfortably profitable even as overall supply profitability has approached historical lows.
A key difference this cycle is the rising share of supply held by corporations and spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Together these entities now control roughly 15.8% of circulating BTC — about 3.32 million coins — and typically have longer holding horizons and lower sensitivity to short-term price swings. That institutional concentration reduces the likelihood that profitability compression feeds the same level of forced selling from long-term holders seen in earlier cycles, helping explain why supply-in-profit can revisit historical accumulation zones while LTH profitability stays elevated.
Exchange flow data also points to waning reactive selling from short-term holders. Short-term holder inflows to Binance fell to about 25,000 BTC on March 25, a new market low compared with roughly 100,000 BTC during the early-February sell-off, suggesting reduced selling pressure from newer market participants.
Valuation indicators can help highlight where deeper stress has historically emerged. Analysts note that conditions such as market-value-to-realized-value (MVRV) under 1, NUPL below −0.2, and a Puell Multiple near 0.35 have tended to appear during periods of heavy retail pressure and undervaluation. While these metrics don’t predict exact bottoms, they identify zones where downside risk has typically been limited relative to long-term upside, offering context on market positioning as supply-in-profit revisits past accumulation ranges.