Bitcoin bear market 70% dip kills BTC 'tourists' as metric screams buy

Published at: Dec. 14, 2022

Bitcoin (BTC) speculators have disappeared from the market and their mood “destroyed,” says popular analyst Philip Swift.

In a tweet on Dec. 14, the co-founder of trading suite Decentrader flagged potential maximum risk-returns for BTC at current prices.

Swift: "Euphoria destroyed" from Bitcoin bear market

BTC/USD is around 70% below its last all-time highs, and the drawdown has flushed out many short-term investors.

The FTX scandal precipitated an even stronger capitulation, one which is ongoing as its after-effects see nervous investors panic.

For Swift, signs that speculator “euphoria” is now gone from Bitcoin come in the form of the popular HODL Waves metric.

HODL Waves group transacted coins by age — how long they were last dormant for until they left their wallet. The resulting data shows to what extent long-term or short-term holders are transacting.

A further iteration of the metric, Realized Cap HODL (RHODL) Waves, additionally weights these bands by realized price — the price at which each bitcoin last moved.

“So RHODL waves are telling us the cost basis of bitcoins that have been held in wallets for different periods of time. Each time period is shown by the waves on the chart,” Swift explains in a description on his dedicated on-chain data resource, LookIntoBitcoin.

Currently, RHODL shows a distinct minority of coins moving on the network soon after they were used in a previous transaction. On the contrary, transactions currently involve coins which last moved 6-12 months ago as the most common age band.

On an accompanying chart, the darker the color of the wave, the more recently the coins involved last moved.

“Euphoria from bitcoin tourists has now been completely destroyed,” Swift commented.

He added that under such circumstances, the risk-reward (R:R) ratio for investing is at its most attractive, based on historical trends from RHODL Waves.

“Realized Cap HODL Waves warmer colors spiking show periods when participants are euphoric,” he wrote.

“We are now at cycle lows...aka max r:r opportunity.”

From capitulation to accumulation

Swift is not alone in eyeing potential bullish signals from Bitcoin as 2022 draws to a close.

In the latest edition of its weekly newsletter, “The Week On-Chain,” analytics firm Glassnode highlighted the ongoing trend from “capitulation” to “accumulation” by BTC investors.

It did so via the UTXO Realized Price Density metric, a similar tool to RHODL Waves which offers an insight into seller intensity based on coin age.

“After each market leg down in 2022, we can see density of coin re-distribution (and thus re-accumulation) has increased,” it wrote, noting that the drop from $24,000 saw $18,000 saw especially strong reaccumulation.

An accompanying chart showed those investors who bought the macro top of each BTC price run, notably in late 2017 and through April 2021.

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