Following a mild price rebound in the past week, Bitcoin (BTC) has surged above 98,000 with the market bulls aiming for a return to the $100,000 price zone. Interestingly, a report from CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost has revealed an increase in short-term holders’ demand that has coincided with this recent price rally.
Bitcoin STH Appetite Mops Up LTH Selling Pressure
In a QuickTake post on Friday, Darkfost reports that Bitcoin long-term holders are on a selling spree which has been matched by heightened demand from short-term holders. Based on market conditions, Darkfost explains that ongoing asset transfer historically occurs only after a local market top or bull cycle peak indicating a potential concern over Bitcoin following the price recorrection in December.
In analyzing the asset’s next move based on short-term holders’ activity which is currently driving market demand, Darkfost has pinpointed $85,000, which is the STH realized price, as a critical price region.
For context, the STH realized price represents the average acquisition price of all BTC held by short-term holders. It often translates into a physiological zone capable of acting as a support or resistance zone.
With Bitcoin still in the uptrend, $85,000 should be regarded as a vital support level that can sustain the bull market in the case of a retest. Based on data on longer STH acquisition periods ranging from 1 week to 6 months, other significant support levels include $81,000 and $60,000.
However, amidst BTC’s recent recovery, a major resistance awaits at $99,000 which represents the realized price for STH that emerged in 1 week -1 month. This is because as Bitcoin approaches $99,000, these newer entrants are likely to sell in order to recover their initial investments which may prevent further growth.
SOPR Shows No Profit For Short-Term Holders
In other developments, Darkfost also notes that the short-term holders’ spent output profit ratio (SOPR) is currently neutral with a value of 1 after Bitcoin’s retracement from $108,000 in December.
This suggests that short-term holders are not selling in profit and are likely to ease up their selling pressure. With the LTH sell-off also being countered by rising demand from these STHs, market liquidity is likely to reduce which can potentially prevent a full bullish market recovery.
Therefore, Darkfost predicts BTC to remain in consolidation with the possibility of further price correction.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin trades at $98,030 following a gain of 1.27% in the past 24 hours. Meanwhile, the asset’s trading volume is down 15.47% and valued at $36.26 billion.
Featured image from CNN, chart from Tradingview