Bitcoin Declines Slightly As Short-Term Holders Take Profits

After surging to as high as $20.9k, Bitcoin has today observed a slight decline back into the low $20k levels as a result of profit taking from short-term holders.

Bitcoin Short-Term Holder SOPR Has Been Elevated Over The Past Two Days

As pointed out by an analyst in a CryptoQuant post, the short-term holders seem to be using the latest price rise for profit taking.

The relevant indicator here is the “Spent Output Profit Ratio” (SOPR), which tells us whether the average investor is selling Bitcoin at a profit or at a loss right now.

When the value of this metric is greater than 1, it means the overall market is realizing some amount of profit currently. On the other hand, values below the threshold suggest the holders as a whole are selling at a loss

Naturally, values of the SOPR exactly equal to one suggest that the investors are just breaking even on their selling at the moment.

Now, there is a cohort in the Bitcoin market called the “short-term holders” (STHs), which includes all investors who have been holding their coins since less than 155 days ago.

Here is a chart that shows the trend in the BTC SOPR specifically for this holder group over the last couple of weeks:

The value of the metric seems to have spiked up in recent days Source: CryptoQuant

As you can see in the above graph, the Bitcoin STH SOPR has been elevated above the 1 level during the last two days or so.

This rise has coincided with the BTC price finally surging up after moving sideways around $19k for a long while. This suggests that these investors are using this opportunity to harvest some profits.

Related Reading: The Inverted Bitcoin Chart Bears Don’t Wanna See