Glassnode

Pioneering on-chain market analysis.

Advanced charts/data/insights for investors in Bitcoin and digital assets.

https://studio.glassnode.com/

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We observe that Solana has consistently maintained a positive net capital inflow since early September 2023, with only minor outflows during this period.

This sustained influx of liquidity has assisted in stimulating growth and price appreciation, achieving a remarkable peak inflow of $776M of new capital per day.

Discover more in our latest Solana research report👇
glassno.de/3Dqm9E9

The last two years have been remarkable for Solana: a staggering price appreciation of +2,143%, outperforming Bitcoin and Ethereum on 344 out of 727 trading days since the FTX fall.

In our latest analysis, we utilize Glassnode’s new breakdown metrics for Solana to inspect and understand the underlying capital flows behind the dramatic ascent. Find out more: https://glassno.de/3Dqm9E9

We've enhanced our latest release of Solana to provide even better analytics: advanced metrics are live! Explore over 80 SOL metrics in Studio: https://glassno.de/SOL

Get an x-ray view of profitability and profit-taking across key assets with the Profitability Map. Track assets with increasing 🔴 or declining 🟢 profitability to anticipate market sentiment shifts before price moves.

📈 DEXE remains highly profitable (1.49), with slowing profit-taking momentum (0.51) and a heating trend. A realized profit spike between Dec 2-9 was followed by modest activity, suggesting holders see potential value.

📉 YFII is strongly cooling, with both profitability and realized profits declining, reflecting reduced cash-out opportunities amid slowing momentum.

Typically a Professional plan dashboard, it's now available to Advanced plan users until March 31, 2025. Explore: https://glassno.de/map

The proportion of Bitcoin wealth held within recently moved supply has started to increase meaningfully in recent months.

This occurs as coins held by Long-Term Holders are distributed to new investors, which in turn highlights a surge in new demand-side activity.

Discover more in the latest Week On-Chain below 👇
glassno.de/41GJwn8

The Week On-Chain 51, 2024
Bitcoin continues trading above the psychologically important $100k price level, supported by a consistent inflow of capital. Long-Term Holders are capitalizing on this liquidity, taking the opportunity to distribute supply at scale, setting a new ATH in profit realized of $2.1B.

Executive Summary
- Bitcoin’s price trajectory shows striking similarities across cycles despite vastly different market scales and dynamics.

- With price trading above $100k for weeks, Long-Term Holders are distributing supply, setting a new ATH in realized profit of $2.1B.

- Most profit-taking comes from coins aged 6m-12m, while older coins remain relatively dormant.

- New investors now hold a larger share of network wealth, reflecting robust demand and a shift away from longer-term HODLers.

Read more in The Week On-Chain newsletter.

Solana vs Ethereum: Probing into the Demand Side

We can gauge demand-side momentum by tracking capital rotation via new investor activity, also known as Hot Realized Cap. The Hot Realized Cap measures the capital held by accounts active in the last 7 days.

1/ Solana Hot Realized Cap

For Solana, the positive market momentum coincided with a surge in its Hot Realized Cap starting in early October 2023.

📊: https://glassno.de/3BwmMvk

2/ Ethereum Hot Realized Cap

Unlike Solana, Ethereum's Hot Realized Cap did not see a significant spike off the 2022-2023 bear market floor. This demonstrates how demand for Solana outpaced Ethereum for most of 2024.

📊: https://glassno.de/3VHfhbE

3/ Demand Shift: SOL vs ETH

However, the recent period of ETH outperforming SOL has coincided with a surge in ETH's Hot Realized Cap starting in early November 2024.
New demand is clearly returning to ETH.

📊: https://glassno.de/49Lm8qy

Looking at price performance, SOL outpaced both ETH and BTC for most of Q4 2024. However, since early December, ETH has taken the lead, outperforming the other two assets.

30-day performance:
ETH: +26.96%
BTC: +17.49%
SOL: +1.61%

A clear shift in momentum. 📊https://glassno.de/4ggZUiw

Analyzing the weekly Realized Cap—a proxy for capital flow—SOL expanded faster than BTC and ETH until early December (over +5%).

Since then, BTC has taken the lead, with ETH outpacing SOL:
BTC: +1.89%
SOL: +1.11%
ETH: +1.03%

Capital flows and price trends have shifted. The tides have turned.
📊: https://glassno.de/4fkLyMz

Bitcoin SpendingPower Law: A NewPredictable Framework
Glassnode's new research reveals how Bitcoin holder behavior follows a power-law decay, offering a groundbreaking perspective on coin age and spending probabilities.

Executive Summary
- Spending probability drops by a factor of 10 for every tenfold increase in coin age, creating a measurable and predictable pattern.

- Coins held for over 3-4 years rarely move, signaling either strong conviction or potential loss.

- A simple heuristic predicts with 98% accuracy that coins younger than 7 days will move, providing actionable short-term insights.

This framework enables investors to segment holders into behavior-driven cohorts and track market sentiment with greater precision.

Read more in the full research report here.

The Week On-Chain 50, 2024
Bitcoin’s journey from the Genesis Block to $100k per BTC is a historic moment and a new high watermark in adoption. With 19.8M BTC mined, $131T in transfer volume processed, and 1.12B transactions, the $100k price milestone is yet another sign of Bitcoin's resilience.

Executive Summary
- The Bitcoin price crossed the $100k mark for the first time on 5 December, after 5,256 trading days, and hitting a market cap briefly exceeding $2 Trillion.

- Miners have earned a cumulative $71.49 Billion since inception, reflecting the network's robust security and economic incentives.

- The network has processed a total of 1.12 Billion transactions and settled $131.25 Trillion in transfer volume, with entity-adjusted figures providing an even clearer view of genuine economic activity.

- A breakdown of supply held by various cohorts highlights a broad distribution of Bitcoin ownership, ranging from retail investors to institutional-scale holders.

Read more in The Week On-Chain newsletter.

📊 Bitcoin Market Cycle Update

Current ROI:
Here's how #Bitcoin’s ROI since cycle low compares to the last two cycles so far:

🔸 2015-2018: 5.90x
🔸 2018-2022: 10.47x
🔸 2022+ (current): 5.98x

The current cycle is 26.94% below the average ROI of the last two cycles (8.18x), highlighting the challenges of sustaining exponential growth as liquidity needs increase.

Bull Market Volatility:
Here’s how this bull market’s corrections compare to the previous cycles:

Average Drawdowns:
🔹 2022+: -7.68%
🔹 Overall: -16.24%

Max Drawdowns:
🔹 2022+: -26.25%
🔹 Overall: -71.15% (2011-2013)

This cycle stands out as the least volatile, with the mildest corrections compared to its predecessors.

Bitcoin’s evolution continues, balancing reduced volatility with steady growth as the market matures and becomes more institutionalized. 📈

Bitcoin’s market cycles are marked by a gradual transition of wealth from long-term holders to short-term holders. This dynamic is playing out similarly in the current cycle but with additional nuances due to the influence of spot ETFs:

As long-term holders are typically defined as those holding Bitcoin for at least 155 days, many early ETF-driven buyers now fall into this category.

🔹 Spot ETF buyers, who began accumulating heavily early in the year, swelled the 6-12 month cohort to 25% by August. Since October, this group has reduced to 16%, possibly due profit-taking by these newer market participants.

🔹 A more concerning trend is the decline in the 1-2 year and 2-3 year cohorts, which represent seasoned holders who accumulated during the June-November 2022 market bottoming phase. Their distribution suggests we are transitioning toward the later stages of the cycle.

🔹 Holders from the 3-5 year cohort remain relatively stable at ~13.9%, indicating that these holders don’t yet seem incentivized to sell.