Bitcoin cost basis bands, live: realized price and the short-term holder breakeven
Every bitcoin has a cost basis: the price it last moved at on-chain. Group those and you get the network’s aggregate breakeven, and the breakeven of the coins bought most recently. The short-term holder cost basis is the single most reactive level on-chain, because the newest buyers are the quickest to sell to get out flat. This page draws those bands, maps where supply is trapped, and grades every time price tested the short-term holder breakeven.
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Breakeven Defense state
reading……%
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share of past short-term holder cost basis tests that were defended rather than broken
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Distance to the breakeven
…ATR
how far price sits from the short-term holder cost basis, measured in daily volatility
Trapped underwater
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share of all bitcoin whose cost basis sits above today’s price, an overhead wall of coins waiting to exit flat
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Price against its cost-basis bands
The cost-basis history is still building.
Hover the chart to read price against the realized price and the short-term and long-term holder cost basis, and how far price sits from the recent-buyer breakeven. Drag to pan, scroll to zoom.
Bitcoin’s price on a log scale, drawn with the aggregate realized price (the whole network’s cost basis), the short-term holder cost basis (coins under 155 days old) and the long-term holder cost basis. The price line is tinted by which band it sits against, so you can see who is underwater at a glance across every cycle. Source: Bitcoin Research Kit (bitview.space), with bitcoin-data.com as the daily failover.
The underwater wall cost-basis distribution
nowThe cost-basis distribution is still building.
Hover the wall to read how much supply is trapped above any price. Drag the slider to move through time.
You are scrubbing about the last year of the wall. ParadiseFamilyVIP unlocks the full-cycle scrub back to 2011, so you can watch the trapped supply build and reset across every bull and bear. Become a PRO Paradiser
Each bar shows how much bitcoin was last acquired at that price on the chosen date. Coins below that day’s price are in profit; coins above it are underwater, an overhead supply that tends to sell into rallies to get out flat. Scrub the slider and the wall migrates as the cost basis follows price through the cycle. This is a first-party read of the on-chain cost-basis distribution, computed from the Bitcoin Research Kit; nobody on the free tier offers it. The values are estimates.
Reading the current setup
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Every breakeven test, graded defended vs rejected
Each time price approached the short-term holder cost basis, we scored whether it was defended (a clean bounce back above) or rejected (a clean break below). Reconstructed tests are marked; new tests are graded live as they resolve.
| Date | Approach | Price | STH cost basis | Days | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Loading the test log… | |||||
Why we publish a base rate, not a false probability
The bands, the heatmap and the graded test log are measured facts, read straight from the on-chain data. Those are the page, and they are not up for debate.
We wanted to give you a calibrated Breakeven Defense probability, conditioned on the setup at each test. We pre-registered the method before we fitted anything, and it did not clear the bar. A breakeven test is an event, not a daily reading, and bitcoin has produced only a few dozen clean tests of the short-term holder cost basis since 2011. The recent window held too few of them to confirm that our conditioning holds out of sample, so putting a precise percentage on the current test would be dressing up noise. Instead we show the honest unconditional frequency, how often the short-term holder cost basis was defended across every test on record, and we read the current setup as a state. When enough new tests accrue, the pre-registered method re-runs itself, and a calibrated number ships only if it earns it. It is a historical frequency, not a forecast, and never advice.
On-chain cost basis, defined
Realized price
Realized price is the average price at which the circulating bitcoin supply last moved on-chain, the network’s aggregate cost basis. Market price above it means the average holder is in profit; below it marks the deep-cycle floor.
Short-term holder cost basis
The average acquisition price of coins moved within the last 155 days, the breakeven of the newest buyers. It is the single most reactive level on-chain, defended in uptrends by dip-buyers and turning to resistance in downtrends as trapped recent buyers sell every rally to exit flat.
Long-term holder cost basis
The average acquisition price of coins held for more than 155 days, the seasoned-holder breakeven. Price has spent only a few percent of its history below it, always in deep capitulation, so it marks the cycle floor.
Trapped supply
Coins whose cost basis sits above the current price, held at an unrealized loss. This overhead supply is a behavioral headwind: as price rallies back toward those levels, some of it sells to get out flat, which is why cost-basis clusters act as resistance.
Cost-basis distribution
Also called realized supply distribution or URPD: a map of how much bitcoin was acquired at each price level. It shows where the walls of supply sit, both the in-profit coins below price and the trapped coins above it, computed directly from the on-chain record.
Cost basis is the wall. Flows are who is climbing it.
The bands tell you where the breakevens sit and where supply is trapped. To see whether holders are actually acting on those levels, read the cycle valuation for the bigger picture and the realized profit-and-loss flows alongside this page. These reads are context, not forecasts.
For the ParadiseTeam, knowing exactly where the recent buyers are trapped, and where they are defended, is one of the layers behind every level we watch, and every trade we share inside ParadiseFamilyVIP. Seats stay deliberately limited.
Check seat availability →How to read the cost-basis bands
Four ideas behind the picture above.
The short-term holder breakeven is the live wire
Recent buyers have the least conviction, so their aggregate breakeven is where behavior changes fastest. In uptrends dip-buyers defend it; in downtrends trapped buyers sell every bounce back to it.
Cost basis is a tripwire, not a wall
Nobody is forced to trade at a cost-basis level. It matters because of the disposition effect: people rush to sell at breakeven and capitulate when the loss stretches too far. So these levels bend price, they do not stop it.
Trapped supply becomes overhead resistance
When a large share of coins were bought above the current price, every rally runs into holders trying to exit flat. The heatmap shows exactly where those walls sit.
We grade the tests, not the vibes
Everyone calls the short-term holder cost basis key support. We mark every time price tested it and score whether it held, so the base rate is a fact rather than a slogan.