Bitcoin Supply In Loss Hits 51.6%, Fastest Drop Since FTX Collapse
What You Need to Know
- Over 51% of circulating Bitcoin now held at a loss, first time since FTX collapse in late 2022.
- Bitcoin supply in loss increased from 34% to 51.6% in approximately one month.
- Bitcoin spent roughly 93% of its history since 2010 with majority of supply in profit.
- Previous instances of this threshold breaking coincided with market cycle floors in 2015, 2018, and late 2022.
More than half of all circulating Bitcoin is now held at a loss for the first time since the FTX collapse in late 2022, with [CryptoQuant](https://cryptoquant.com/asset/btc/chart/network-indicator/supply-in-loss-percent?window=DAY&sma=0&ema=0&priceScale=log&metricScale=linear&chartStyle=line) data showing 51.6% of supply sitting above its cost basis relative to current prices. That share rose from 34% in roughly a month, meaning a significant portion of recent buyers moved underwater quickly.
The metric itself is straightforward: every Bitcoin carries the price at which it last moved on-chain, and when that price exceeds the current market price, that coin is counted as in loss. According to [onchainmind](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlp_W8oTD-c).io, Bitcoin has spent approximately 93% of its history since 2010 with more than half of supply in profit, which makes the current reading genuinely rare rather than just uncomfortable. The three prior instances where this threshold broke, around the 2015 lows, the 2018 capitulation, and the post-FTX bottom in late 2022, each coincided with a cycle floor, though in each case the timing was approximate rather than surgical. What makes the current move notable is the speed: a 17-percentage-point deterioration in a single month reflects recent buyers getting caught, not long-term holders capitulating en masse.
Speed of deterioration matters here more than the level itself, because it identifies who is in pain: buyers from the past few months, not the 2020 or 2021 cohort.
What History Actually Suggests Comes Next
The precedents from 2015, 2018, and 2022 share a detail that tends to get lost in the bottom-calling: none of them resolved with a sharp V-shaped recovery. Each was followed by weeks to months of sideways or choppy price action while supply changed hands from distressed sellers to buyers with lower cost bases. That process, sometimes called time-based capitulation, is less dramatic than a single flush to a lower low but arguably harder to trade through. Retail participants tend to exit during the grind, not the drop, which is precisely when on-chain accumulation signals from larger holders have historically begun appearing. Whether that rotation is underway now is not yet visible in the current data.
The broader context matters too. Spot Bitcoin ETFs, which did not exist during any prior instance of this signal, now represent a significant and relatively price-sensitive holder base. Sustained ETF outflows during a grinding sideways period would be a different dynamic than anything the 2015 or 2018 cycles produced, and worth tracking alongside the supply-in-loss reading rather than treating the on-chain signal in isolation.
A confirmed directional shift in ETF flows over the next several weeks would be the most concrete evidence of whether institutional holders are behaving differently from the retail-driven cycles this signal was originally observed in.
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