On-chain profit-taking picked up as Bitcoin pulled back
Bitcoin recorded about $1.03 billion in single-day realized profit on Oct. 8, according to Santiment data cited by DailyCoin, making it the second-highest daily reading of 2026 and just below the year’s $1.04 billion peak. The article, written by the MEXC Crypto Pulse team, uses that figure as a starting point to examine whether Bitcoin holders, especially larger ones, are actively locking in gains.
The cited data places that burst of realized profit after Bitcoin rallied to roughly $87,000 and then fell back toward $81,000. Over the same week, BTC dropped about 5%, roughly $520 million in long positions were liquidated, and U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs posted more than $702 million in net outflows. Fortune’s market data for Oct. 13 showed BTC at $83,408.20, up about 7.95% from a month earlier, down about 27.64% from a year earlier, and still well below the all-time high of $126,198.07 set on Oct. 6, 2025.
The piece argues that when price stalls while realized gains surge, the market needs a way to measure whether holders are actually selling. On-chain data can do that because every spent bitcoin carries two price references: the price when it last moved and the price when it moved again. Dividing the latter by the former gives SOPR. Subtracting the two and multiplying by the amount gives realized profit or realized loss. One describes the nature of the selling, the other its size in dollar terms.
Key takeaways
- SOPR is anchored to 1. Under Glassnode’s definition, SOPR equals the USD value of spent outputs at the time they are spent divided by the USD value of those outputs when they were created. A reading above 1 means coins moved, on average, at a profit. A reading below 1 means they moved at a loss.
- The 155-day split separates holder groups. Glassnode defines STH-SOPR using outputs younger than 155 days and LTH-SOPR using outputs older than 155 days. The two series point to very different types of behavior.
- Realized P&L is the dollar-denominated version of SOPR. Glassnode’s definition of net realized profit/loss shows the relationship directly: net realized profit/loss equals realized profit minus realized loss, and also equals 1 minus the inverse of SOPR, multiplied by dollar transfer volume for the period.
- SOPR tracks behavior, while MVRV tracks valuation. MVRV is market capitalization divided by realized capitalization and measures unrealized profit relative to aggregate cost basis. SOPR measures whether the coins that were actually spent were sold at a profit or loss.
- 2026 offered examples at both ends. In early June, long-term holders realized about $2.4 billion in losses over 48 hours and LTH-SOPR fell below 1. After mid-August, SOPR reclaimed 1 and held above it for three weeks, the longest stretch of profitable spending in 2026.
- Ratios and dollar amounts need to be read together. SOPR shows the average profitability of sold coins, while realized profit shows how large that selling was in dollar terms.
Why profit-taking needs to be measured now
What a $1 billion day in realized profit means
The article says the $1.03 billion reading from Santiment is not, by itself, a bearish call. It notes that the data does not guarantee a major reversal. Its value lies elsewhere: it confirms that the move from around $81,000 to $87,000 ran into real supply from holders who were already in profit, rather than panic selling from underwater participants.
Price then pulled back, which the article reads as a sign that this selling was not fully absorbed by equally strong demand. It also points to a matching signal from the funding side. During the same week, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded more than $702 million in net outflows, suggesting that incremental allocation demand weakened while on-chain profit realization expanded.
Price remains roughly one-third below the record high
Viewed over a longer window, Bitcoin is still about 34% below its all-time high of $126,198.07. It is down about 27.64% from a year earlier, even though it is up about 7.95% from a month ago. The article argues that this price zone matters because holders with different entry points are in very different positions. Buyers from the fourth quarter of 2025 remain underwater, while those who bought during the lower levels of mid-2026 are sitting on meaningful paper gains.
Price alone cannot show which cohort is selling. That is where SOPR and realized profit/loss come in: they separate out who is moving coins and whether those coins are being moved in profit or in loss.
What SOPR actually measures
How it is calculated and why 1 matters
Each unspent transaction output in Bitcoin has a creation time recorded on-chain, which can be matched to a USD price at that point. When that output is later spent, it maps to a new price. Glassnode defines SOPR as the sum of the USD value of all spent outputs at the time of spending divided by the sum of the USD value of those same outputs at creation.
That makes interpretation straightforward. Above 1 means the coins moved in the period were spent, on average, at a profit. Below 1 means they were spent at a loss, often associated with panic or capitulation. A reading of exactly 1 means they were spent around cost basis.
The article notes that SOPR was proposed by Renato Shirakashi. In Glassnode’s product note dated June 24, 2019, the firm added an empirical observation: in bull markets, dips below 1 often get repaired quickly because holders are reluctant to sell at a loss if they expect higher prices ahead. In bear markets, moves above 1 can also fade quickly because sellers are willing to exit near breakeven to avoid deeper losses. For that reason, the 1 line often acts as more than an accounting threshold. It can also behave like a behavioral support or resistance zone.
Why aSOPR removes outputs younger than one hour
Raw SOPR counts every spent output. That includes a large amount of short-lived change, internal wallet shuffling, and other reorganizations that do not necessarily reflect an intentional buy or sell decision. Glassnode’s adjusted SOPR, or aSOPR, excludes outputs with a lifespan of less than one hour to reduce that noise and better isolate actual trading behavior.
The article says aSOPR is usually cleaner than raw SOPR for daily analysis, especially on days when exchanges are carrying out large wallet maintenance operations.
Splitting holders apart: STH-SOPR and LTH-SOPR
The 155-day threshold
Glassnode defines STH-SOPR using spent outputs with an age below 155 days and LTH-SOPR using those older than 155 days. The article also cites CryptoQuant’s indicator note, which gives a more specific short-term holder definition: outputs older than one hour but younger than 155 days, again interpreted relative to the 1 threshold.
The article says 155 days is not arbitrary. It reflects a historical window after which holding behavior changes materially. Past that point, coins are statistically more likely to belong to longer-term holders than to shorter-term traders. Looking at the two curves separately matters because they signal different things. Short-term holder realization tends to reflect trading sentiment and leverage conditions. Long-term holder realization is closer to structural supply release.
Two different stories in 2026
The article points to a pair of examples from this year. The first came in early June. According to analysis from Coinspeaker republished by Yahoo Finance, long-term holders realized about $2.4 billion in losses over the 48 hours through June 5, and LTH-SOPR fell below 1. That meant coins older than 155 days were being sold at a loss. The analysis compared that pattern with lows seen in January 2015, December 2018, and November 2022. Bitcoin later hit its yearly low of $58,035 on June 25, the weakest level since September 2024. The article argues that long-term holder capitulation has historically appeared more often near cycle bottoms than near tops.
The second example came after the summer. Citing CryptoQuant data via COINOTAG, the article says SOPR stood at 1.002 by early September and had remained above 1 for three straight weeks from Aug. 19, the longest profitable spending stretch of 2026. Into October, ChainCatcher relayed a chart published on X by analyst Darkfost showing a weekly average LTH-SOPR of 1.25 and a monthly average of 1.16, both above the annual average of 1.10. The article says that annual level corresponds to roughly 10% average realized gains for long-term holders over the past year. It also adds a caution: these figures came from an individual analyst’s post and had not been confirmed by an official data-platform methodology, even if they pointed in the same direction as the rise in realized profit.
The piece stresses that SOPR staying above 1 is not bearish on its own. Profit-taking is a normal part of an uptrend. The more important warning sign is a prolonged rise in realized selling while price stops making new highs.
Realized profit and realized loss: the dollar scale of the same activity
The conversion between net realized P&L and SOPR
Glassnode’s definitions are laid out clearly in the article. Realized profit is the total USD gain generated when coins moved on-chain are valued against the price at which they last moved. Realized loss is the corresponding total USD loss. Net realized profit/loss is the difference between the two. The article also says Glassnode provides the algebraic link to SOPR: net realized profit/loss equals 1 minus the inverse of SOPR, multiplied by dollar transfer volume in the period.
That relationship explains the division of labor between the indicators. SOPR is dimensionless. It answers how profitable the average spent coin was. Net realized profit/loss adds transaction scale and answers how much money that realization amounted to in absolute terms. A SOPR reading of 1.05 on a quiet weekend and the same reading on a high-volume rally day do not imply the same market pressure.
Why ratios and dollar values must be read together
According to the article’s reading of Glassnode’s framework, a positive net realized profit/loss value means profits are being taken. If price is still rising at the same time, demand is absorbing that selling pressure. If realized peaks keep rising while demand weakens, the setup can point to a local top. A negative reading means losses are being realized; deeply negative values often line up with capitulation and have historically appeared before reversals. Values near zero suggest coins are moving around cost basis, which can mean confidence repair during a bull-market pullback or breakeven exits during a bear market.
Applied to Oct. 8, the article combines three signals. SOPR above 1 showed that sellers were, on average, in profit. The $1.03 billion realized profit reading showed that the scale of those gains ranked second in the year. The slide from $87,000 to $81,000 showed that buyers did not fully absorb the selling. The article says no single data point is enough on its own, but together they point to the same conclusion.
How SOPR and MVRV divide the job
MVRV is defined as market capitalization divided by realized capitalization, with realized capitalization representing the aggregate cost basis of circulating supply. According to the article’s summary of Glassnode’s framework, a ratio above 1 that continues to rise means unrealized gains versus cost basis are expanding across the market, which can increase the incentive to take profits. Historically, readings above 3.5 have been associated with large-scale distribution in the later stages of bull markets. A reading below 1 means most supply is below cost basis and has historically aligned with capitulation and accumulation in bear-market bottoms.
The two indicators answer different questions. MVRV asks how much paper profit the market would be sitting on if everyone sold now. It measures unrealized profit and serves as a valuation gauge for potential selling pressure. SOPR asks whether the coins that have already moved were sold at a profit or loss. It measures realized behavior.
High paper gains do not mean holders will sell, and that is MVRV’s blind spot. SOPR has a different limitation: it can only see coins that moved. It cannot see the large share of supply that remains inactive. The article says the more useful approach is to chain them together. Use MVRV to estimate how much pressure exists, then use SOPR and realized P&L to see whether that pressure is being released and at what pace.
How to use these indicators, and what they miss
Three common misreadings
The first mistake is to treat SOPR as a direct buy or sell signal. The article says the metric oscillates around 1 at high frequency, and single-day crossings are common in any market regime. What matters more are deviations that last for weeks or patterns that diverge clearly from price.
The second mistake is to ignore transfer volume. Because SOPR is a ratio, a small number of transactions can push it to an extreme when on-chain activity is thin. Those moves are often not representative and need to be checked against realized profit/loss in absolute dollar terms.
The third mistake is to equate realized profit with direct market sell pressure. A coin moving from one address to another is counted as spent on-chain, but that does not always mean it was sold into the market. It could reflect a move into custody, a portfolio reshuffle, or internal operations. The article says actual sell pressure needs to be cross-checked against exchange inflows, funding rates, and open interest.
The limits of the metric itself
The article lists several boundaries. Internal exchange ledger changes do not appear on-chain, so large volumes traded inside matching engines are invisible to SOPR. ETF creation and redemption processes also happen partly off-chain, which means their supply-demand effects are not fully captured by on-chain spending data. OTC transfers between institutions and wallet reorganizations by custodians add more noise. aSOPR solves only the most superficial part of that problem by excluding outputs younger than one hour.
There is also a structural issue. SOPR uses the price when a coin last moved as its cost basis, not the owner’s true purchase price. If a bitcoin has been transferred across different wallets multiple times, the on-chain reference cost gets reset again and again. That can pull short-term readings away from the holder’s real profit and loss position.
What the article says is worth tracking regularly
The piece recommends tracking SOPR against the 1 threshold on a weekly basis rather than a daily one, watching whether deviations persist. It also recommends placing realized profit and realized loss side by side to monitor the direction of net values and the location of extremes. STH-SOPR and LTH-SOPR should be separated to judge whether the current selling comes from trading capital or structural holders. From there, those signals should be cross-checked against MVRV, ETF flows, and market structure. Used alone, any one of them can mislead. Used together, they form a more coherent chain of evidence.
James Mitchell’s view
In the article, James Mitchell says SOPR deserves long-term attention because it turns a psychological question that cannot be falsified into an accounting question that can be calculated. Market sentiment cannot be measured directly, but whether the coins that moved were moved at a profit or a loss is a factual question. He argues that the $1.03 billion realized profit on Oct. 8, followed by the move from $87,000 down to $81,000, forms a complete chain of cause and effect rather than a retrospective narrative.
He highlights two common errors. One is treating SOPR staying above 1 as a top signal. Profit-taking is part of a healthy advance. What matters more is a setup where realized dollar gains keep increasing while price can no longer break higher, meaning the ratio and the dollar amount are both rising while price flattens. The other is treating June’s break below 1 in LTH-SOPR as proof that trend conditions had turned worse. The article argues the opposite historical tendency: long-term holder capitulation has appeared more often near cyclical bottoms than near tops. The roughly $2.4 billion in concentrated realized losses arrived shortly before the yearly low of $58,035 on June 25, and that sequence matters.
Mitchell points to three variables worth following next. First is the sequence of realized profit peaks. If future single-day peaks keep rising while price cannot clear prior highs, the market’s ability to absorb supply may be weakening. Second is whether long-term holder SOPR can stay above its annual average. The 1.10 annual average cited by the analyst corresponds to about 10% average realized gains and still sits in what the article calls a moderate zone. A rapid move well above that level would more often fit later-stage distribution. Third is the consistency between on-chain signals and ETF flows. In the week discussed, on-chain realization expanded while ETF outflows topped $702 million, so both pointed in the same direction. If later periods show rising on-chain realization alongside sustained ETF inflows, the article says the interpretation changes: coins may be moving from older holders to newer allocators rather than simply overwhelming demand.
The article closes by saying this matters beyond crypto because Bitcoin is one of the few assets where both cost-basis distribution and realized selling behavior can be observed directly. In equities, investors infer those conditions from turnover, margin balances, and position reports. In bonds, they infer them from turnover and spread behavior. On-chain data records the cost basis of every move in public. The tradeoff is methodological complexity. Internal exchange books, ETF creation and redemption processes, and custodial wallet restructuring all reduce data purity. For that reason, the article says SOPR is better used as cross-validation for other views than as a standalone timing tool. For long-term investors using periodic purchases, its value lies more in understanding the source of volatility than in predicting the next candle.
Frequently asked questions
What is SOPR, and how is it calculated?
SOPR is the Spent Output Profit Ratio. It is calculated by dividing the total USD value of all outputs spent in a given period at the time of spending by the total USD value of those same outputs at the time they were created. Above 1 means the moved coins were sold, on average, at a profit. Below 1 means they were sold at a loss. A reading of 1 means they were moved around breakeven. The article says the metric was proposed by Renato Shirakashi, formally launched by Glassnode in June 2019, and can be traced back to January 2013.
Does SOPR above 1 mean Bitcoin is topping?
No. The article explicitly says profit realization is a normal part of an advancing market, and SOPR can remain above 1 for long periods in a bull market. What matters more is the combination in which single-day realized profit peaks keep rising while price fails to post new highs. Single-day moves across 1 are common. It is multi-week deviations or clear divergences from price that carry more analytical weight.
What is the difference between STH-SOPR and LTH-SOPR?
The difference lies in holding age. STH-SOPR includes spent outputs younger than 155 days and reflects short-term holder behavior. LTH-SOPR includes outputs older than 155 days and reflects long-term holder behavior. The first is more closely tied to trading sentiment and leverage conditions. The second is more closely tied to structural supply release. The article also notes that CryptoQuant’s short-term holder framework excludes outputs younger than one hour to filter internal-transfer noise.
How should SOPR and MVRV be used together?
MVRV equals market capitalization divided by realized capitalization and measures unrealized profit relative to cost basis across the whole market. It answers how large potential selling pressure may be. SOPR measures whether coins that have already moved were sold at a profit or loss, so it answers whether that pressure is being released. The article recommends using MVRV first to judge the level of latent pressure, then using SOPR and realized P&L to judge release timing and intensity.
How are realized profit and realized loss defined?
Realized profit is the total USD profit generated when coins moved on-chain are compared with the price at which they last moved. Realized loss is the corresponding total USD loss. Net realized profit/loss is the difference between the two. The article says the metric can also be converted directly from SOPR by taking 1 minus the inverse of SOPR and multiplying by dollar transfer volume. In practice, SOPR gives the relative magnitude and realized P&L gives the absolute dollar size, so both need to be used together.
Are Bitcoin holders taking profit right now?
Based on the data cited in the article, realization activity has increased. Realized profit reached about $1.03 billion on Oct. 8, the second-highest daily value of 2026, while price fell from roughly $87,000 to near $81,000. At the same time, data compiled by an analyst showed weekly LTH-SOPR back at 1.25, above the 1.10 annual average. That suggests sellers were, on balance, in profit. The article adds that those readings alone do not confirm a trend reversal and still need to be read alongside price structure and capital flows.
What are SOPR’s main limitations?
The biggest limitation is that SOPR can only see on-chain movement. Trades inside exchange matching engines do not hit the blockchain, part of ETF creation and redemption is off-chain, and OTC transfers or custodial wallet restructuring can all introduce noise. On top of that, SOPR uses the price when a coin last moved rather than the holder’s true purchase price, and repeated transfers can keep resetting that reference point. The article says that makes SOPR better suited as confirmatory evidence than as a standalone trading signal.
How can ordinary investors use this data?
The article suggests tracking the relationship between SOPR and the 1 threshold on a weekly basis, comparing realized profit with realized loss, separating short-term and long-term holder curves, and then cross-checking those signals with MVRV, ETF fund flows, and price structure. Its main use is to explain where volatility is coming from and how market structure is changing, not to predict short-term price moves.
Disclosure in the original article
The original article says the material is provided for general market information and analysis only and does not constitute investment, financial, legal, tax, or trading advice. It also notes that the quoted prices, on-chain readings, research conclusions, and third-party analysis came from public information available at the time of publication, while some figures were published by individual analysts and had not been confirmed under an official platform methodology. Those values may change over time, and readers should refer to the latest disclosures from the relevant institutions and data providers.