Bitcoin Faces Lack of Fresh Momentum as Realized Cap Growth Continues to Decline

On-chain data indicates a recent decline in the Bitcoin Realized Cap Growth, highlighting a slowdown in new capital inflows.

Key Takeaways

The Bitcoin Realized Cap Growth indicator is currently trending downward.
"Realized Cap" measures Bitcoin's value based on the last transaction price of each token.
The decline in Realized Cap Growth suggests a lack of momentum from new capital entering the Bitcoin market.
Short-term Bitcoin holders continue to face losses despite recent price fluctuations.

Bitcoin

Understanding Bitcoin Realized Cap Growth

According to CryptoQuant analyst Maartunn's recent post on X, the Bitcoin Realized Cap Growth has been on a downward trend lately. The "Realized Cap" is a unique capitalization model for Bitcoin that calculates its total value by using the price at which each individual token last changed hands on the blockchain. This approach is different from the traditional market cap method, which simply multiplies the current number of tokens in circulation by their current market price.

In essence, the Realized Cap represents the total amount of capital that Bitcoin investors have used to acquire the cryptocurrency. Conversely, market cap reflects the current value that investors hold based on today’s prices. While the Realized Cap is not the focal point of our analysis, the growth of the Realized Cap—which measures year-over-year changes—provides valuable insights into the overall capital dynamics in the cryptocurrency market.

The changes in this indicator reveal how much capital is flowing in and out of Bitcoin. In simpler terms, the Realized Cap Growth gives a snapshot of the current net inflow or outflow of funds.

To illustrate this, here's a chart from Maartunn showing the 7-day and 59-day moving averages (MAs) of Bitcoin's Realized Cap Growth over time:

Bitcoin Realized Cap Growth
The indicator currently signals a bearish market phase | Source: @JA_Maartun on X

As shown in the chart above, both the 7-day and 59-day moving averages for the Bitcoin Realized Cap Growth have recently started to decline, with the shorter-term line crossing below the longer-term line. This trend indicates that the Realized Cap Growth is slowing down amidst the recent market downturn. Analyst Maartunn noted, "This suggests Bitcoin is lacking momentum from new cost basis inflows."

The crossing of the 7-day MA below the 59-day MA signals that the market is in a "bear phase." The previous occurrence of this signal was during Bitcoin's decline in the early months of 2025. It remains to be seen how long this weak momentum from new capital inflows will persist for Bitcoin this time.

Short-Term Holders Facing Pressure

In related news, short-term Bitcoin holders continue to experience significant stress, as highlighted by CryptoQuant author IT Tech in a post on X.

Bitcoin STH Profit/Loss Margin
Profit and loss margins for short-term Bitcoin holders over the past year | Source: @IT_Tech_PL on X

Short-term holders (STHs), defined as those who purchased Bitcoin within the last 155 days, are currently facing an average loss of 10%, despite a rebound since Bitcoin's low in November.

Bitcoin Price Overview

Currently, Bitcoin's price hovers around $92,400, reflecting a 1.5% decrease over the last 24 hours.

Bitcoin Price Chart
Price trend of Bitcoin over the past five days | Source: BTCUSDT on TradingView

Overall, while current market conditions indicate troubling signs for Bitcoin, ongoing analysis will be crucial in understanding the potential for future recovery and investor sentiment.