Analyst on $17.6K BTC price bottom: Bitcoin 'not there yet'

Published at: Sept. 14, 2022

Bitcoin (BTC) market behavior is not yet “synonymous” with previous bear market bottoms, one of the leading crypto analysts argues.

In a Twitter thread on Sep. 14, statistician Willy Woo, creator of data resource Woobull, offered three examples of why BTC/USD should still have further to fall.

Despite many calling a new macro price bottom during June’s trip to $17,600, not everyone is confident that Bitcoin will avoid a retest.

For Woo, there is still reason to believe that lower levels will mark the new price floor — and this could be anywhere, including below $10,000.

"Underwater" supply short of bottom zone

One metric Woo flags is the percentage of the overall BTC supply held at a loss — now worth more than the price at which it last moved.

In previous bear markets, price bottoms coincided with more than 60% of coins being underwater.

“In terms of max pain, the market has not felt the same pain as prior bottoms,” he warned alongside a chart from on-chain analytics firm Glassnode.

According to that chart, 52% of the supply is currently at a loss, and in order to hit the 60% mark, BTC/USD would need to dip to just $9,600.

Woo added that at the pit of Bitcoin’s prior bear markets, supply at a loss “cleanly” pierced a long-term trend line, something also yet to happen this time around.

Cost basis edges toward target zone

Another telltale sign of the Bitcoin market bottoming lies in the composition of its investor base — long-term (LTH) and short-term (STH) holders.

Normally, at the bottom, STHs have a lower cost basis than LTHs. This means that STHs paid less for their coins than LTHs, the latter defined as those hodling BTC for 155 days or more.

“We are close, but not there yet. Some more time to burn IMO,” Woo commented.

Previously, David Puell, creator of the Puell Multiple indicator, flagged differences in cost basis as an “interesting” factor to consider for analysts.

Accumulation not "synonymous" with history

Finally, hodlers big and small still need to accumulate harder, Woo concludes.

Alongside a Glassnode chart of bear market accumulation trends, he noted that in 2022, BTC has not been flowing from sellers to “urgent” buyers at a comparable rate to before.

“So far we haven't had the levels of accumulation synonymous to prior bottoms,” he explained.

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