Nearly 40% of all Bitcoin in circulation was bought at prices higher than where it trades today, leaving a large share of holders sitting on losses.
That figure, cited by analyst Darkfost, captures the strain building across the market as big players pull back from buying and demand shows little sign of recovery.
A Slow Exit By The Biggest Players
Whale-sized accounts — those holding between 1,000 and 10,000 BTC — have seen their annual balance growth turn negative, according to CryptoQuant.
Monthly growth across that cohort has been essentially flat since February, a pattern the on-chain analytics firm says mirrors what happened during the 2022 bear market, when prices dropped sharply over several months.
Slightly smaller but still significant holders, known as dolphins, hold between 100 and 1,000 BTC and include exchange-traded funds and corporate treasury accounts.
Their balances are still growing on an annual basis, but the pace has dropped sharply, with monthly growth now hovering near zero and readings posting lower highs since September 2025.
CryptoQuant says these two groups together form the backbone of structural demand in Bitcoin markets, which makes their slowdown hard to ignore.
Long-Term Holders Pile Up, But Buyers Are Missing
One figure stands out as deceptively optimistic: long-term holder supply has climbed to a record 15.8 million BTC. On its face, that sounds like conviction. But CryptoQuant reads it differently — as a sign that existing holders are sitting tight while new buyers stay away, leaving the market without the fresh demand needed to push prices higher.
Tim Sun, a researcher at HashKey Group, says the share of supply sitting at an unrealized loss has at times approached 50%, a level not seen since the depths of the 2022 downturn.
He puts the absolute bottom range at $40,000 to $45,000, though he considers $55,000 to $60,000 a more realistic floor — provided the situation between the US and Iran does not worsen and the Federal Reserve holds off on rate hikes.
BTC continues to trade back and forth within a distribution cluster between $66,000 and $80,000, where buyers and sellers are still battling for control.
This remains a difficult environment for investors to navigate, with euphoria emerging whenever BTC approaches the upper end… pic.twitter.com/8Zr96tDiJ0
— Darkfost (@Darkfost_Coc) May 28, 2026
What A Recovery Would Actually Require
Sun is clear that a genuine turnaround depends on more than price action alone. A definitive shift toward easier monetary policy and looser financial conditions would need to come first, he said.
Crypto analyst Darkfost described the current market as a difficult range to trade, with excitement building each time Bitcoin nears the upper end and pessimism returning just as fast as it drifts lower. At prices around $73,510, the data paints a picture of a market still searching for a floor.
Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView
