Bitcoin Breakout Came After Profit-Taking Cooldown: Report

A report from on-chain analytics firm Glassnode has revealed how Bitcoin profit realization saw a reset ahead of the recent price surge.

Bitcoin Realized Profit Has Gone Down Recently

In its latest weekly report, Glassnode has talked about the latest trend in the Realized Profit of Bitcoin. This on-chain indicator measures the total amount of profit that investors on the BTC network are realizing through their transactions.

The metric works by going through the transfer history of each coin being moved or sold on the network to see what price it was transacted at prior to this. If the last transaction price of the token was less than the spot price it’s now being sold at, then the sale is considered to realize some net gain.

The exact amount of profit involved in the transfer is equal to the difference between the two prices. The Realized Profit sums up this value for all profit transactions on the blockchain.

A counterpart indicator known as the Realized Loss takes care of the sales of the opposite type. That is, the moves involving a cost basis higher than the latest transfer price.

Now, here is a chart that shows the trend in the 7-day moving average (MA) of the Bitcoin Realized Profit over the last few years:

The value of the metric seems to have gone down in recent days | Source: Glassnode's The Week Onchain - Week 1, 2026

As displayed in the above graph, the 7-day average Bitcoin Realized Profit was above the $1 billion level for much of the fourth quarter of 2025, with a particularly large spike of nearly $3 billion coming in November that coincided with the cryptocurrency’s bottom.

In December, however, the metric saw a sharp decline to a value of just $183.8 million. “This deceleration in realized gains, particularly among longer-term holders, signalled an exhaustion of distribution-side pressure that had been anchoring price action in the prior quarter,” noted Glassnode.

What followed this cooldown in profit-taking was BTC’s climb above $94,000 during the first week of 2026. “As sell-side intensity eased, the market was able to stabilize, regain composure, and support a renewed upside impulse,” said the analytics firm.

The Realized Profit and Realized Loss deal with the profit/loss being realized by the investors, but what about the unrealized profits or losses? An indicator called the Market Value to Realized Value (MVRV) Ratio contains the information related to that.

In the report, Glassnode has specifically discussed about this indicator for the short-term holders (STHs), representing the low-conviction side of the market (holding time of 155 days or less).

How the STH MVRV has changed in the last few years | Source: Glassnode's The Week Onchain - Week 1, 2026

From the chart, it’s visible that the Bitcoin STH MVRV has been below the 1 level recently, implying that the new market entrants have been holding a net unrealized loss.

BTC Price

Bitcoin fell under $90,000 earlier in the day, but the asset has since rebounded to $90,900.

The trend in the price of the coin over the last five days | Source: BTCUSDT on TradingView

Featured image from Dall-E, Glassnode.com, chart from TradingView.com