The price of bitcoin has retreated from its recent all-time high of $73,700, but capital flows into the leading digital asset are continuing at a steady pace.
In its latest report covering the state of the network, onchain analytics firm Glassnode highlighted that the market is currently in a state of abundant liquidity and seeing a reawakening of dormant supply.
Notably, while a trend of profit taking dominates investor behaviour, profit dominance is shifting from short term holders to long term holders of bitcoin.
When this supply is spent in taking profits, coins are revalued from a lower-cost basis to a higher one, which Glassnode considers an indicator of fresh demand and liquidity into bitcoin.
“This mechanic is elegantly expressed by the Realized Cap metric, tracking the cumulative USD liquidity ‘stored’ in the asset the class,” said Glassnode analysts.
Realized Cap is a variation of market capitalization that values each unspent transaction output (UTXO) based on the price when it was last moved, as opposed to its current value. Essentially, it represents the realized value of all the coins in the network, as opposed to their market value.
Given that Realized Cap values each coin at the time last moved, it can be considered a proxy for the value stored or saved in the asset.
The Realized Cap metric now stands at an all-time high of $540 billion and is increasing at a rate of $79 billion month on month.
If we segregate the #Bitcoin Realized Cap for coin-ages younger than 3 months, we can see a sharp increase over recent months, with these newer investors now owning ~44% of the aggregate network wealth.
This uptick in younger coins is a direct result of Long-Term Holders… pic.twitter.com/VS2TzmYhCN
— glassnode (@glassnode) April 3, 2024
The uptick in demand comes alongside a higher appetite for speculation, noted the analysts, which could further the volatility that currently dominates crypto markets.
