Bitcoin Bull Run: Over Or Just Paused? CryptoQuant CEO Presents The Data

Bitcoin’s on-chain image is flashing a uncommon mixture: substantial earnings throughout cohorts, rising realized capitalization, and document community hashrate—but not one of the price-accelerating euphoria that usually marks late-stage bull legs. That is the central takeaway from CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju’s newest thread, which parses holder value bases, cohort profitability, leverage, and the evolving function of ETFs and company treasuries in setting the tape.

Is The Bitcoin Bull Run Over?

The headline quantity is startling on its face. “Bitcoin wallets’ avg value foundation is $55.9K, that means holders are up ~93% on common,” Ju wrote, including that realized capitalization climbed by roughly $8 billion this week, a clear learn that “on-chain inflows stay robust.” Realized cap—an alternate valuation measure that sums cash at their final transacted worth quite than right this moment’s market worth—has traditionally served as a lower-variance proxy for true money-at-work. Its continued rise usually implies that recent value foundation is being set greater on chain, even when spot stalls.

So why hasn’t worth budged in tandem? Ju’s reply is easy: “Price hasn’t gone up due to promoting strain, not as a result of demand was weak.” That framing is per a market digesting positive aspects whereas liquidity suppliers and worthwhile cohorts distribute into energy. It additionally helps clarify the co-existence of wholesome inflows with flat worth motion across the $110,000 deal with that Ju cites as the present print.

Where the marginal demand is coming from—and the place it has slowed—issues. According to Ju, “New inflows largely come from ETFs and Bitcoin treasury firms, whereas CEX merchants & miners are sitting on ~2x positive aspects.” He broke out estimated cohort value bases and mark-to-market efficiency as follows: “ETFs / Custodial Wallets: $112K (-1%), Binance Traders: $56K (+96%), Miners: $56K (+96%), Long-term Whales: $43K (+155%). Current Price: $110K.”

If these estimates maintain, short-horizon institutional consumers are hovering close to breakeven, whereas long-tenured entities nonetheless carry deep embedded earnings. That distribution dampens compelled promoting danger on the very prime but additionally withholds the type of recent momentum that usually arrives when new consumers push decisively into the cash.
Valuation context helps. Ju notes that in pronounced bull phases, market cap tends to outrun realized cap, making a widening “valuation multiplier.” “When the expansion price hole between market cap and realized cap widens, it reveals a stronger valuation multiplier,” he wrote.

“Roughly $1T in onchain inflows has created a $2T market cap. The hole appears reasonable for now.” A reasonable hole is a double-edged sign: not clearly frothy, but additionally not the type of exuberant growth that ends cycles. It enhances Ju’s evaluation of large-holder positioning: “Whales’ unrealized earnings aren’t excessive.” That situation admits two interpretations he spelled out explicitly: “Hype hasn’t arrived but—we’re nonetheless removed from euphoric sentiment.” Or, “This time is totally different—the market is simply too huge for excessive revenue ratios.”

Perpetuals and collateral flows spherical out the microstructure image. Ju highlights a “sharp” drop in BTC shifting from spot-focused venues to futures exchanges—a sign that “whales are now not opening new lengthy positions with BTC collateral as actively as earlier than.”

If the marginal lengthy is now not pledging cash, the market loses a mechanical supply of bid depth and convexity from collateralized positioning. Yet leverage itself has not reset: “Bitcoin perp leverage stays high regardless of the recent wipeout,” Ju writes, pointing to ratios comparable to BTC-USDT perpetual open curiosity relative to trade USDT balances and to USDT market cap.

In easy phrases, conviction longs seem much less collateral-heavy in BTC, however system-wide leverage, as proxied by perps, stays elevated versus two years in the past. That mixture can suppress clear trending conduct: fewer collateralized longs to chase upside, however sufficient leverage within the system to impose uneven liquidations.

Hashrate and industrial provide traits complicate the narrative additional. “Bitcoin hashrate retains hitting new highs (~5.96M ASICs on-line). Public miners are increasing, not downsizing, which is a transparent long-term bullish sign. The Bitcoin ‘cash vessel’ retains rising.”

Rising hashrate plus increasing public miner fleets usually factors to ahead funding and confidence in long-run price and subsidy economics. It doesn’t, nonetheless, assure short-term worth appreciation; if something, it may possibly increase miner treasury administration wants, interacting with market liquidity in methods which can be neutral-to-price absent recent demand.

New Demand Push Needed

The demand aspect, in Ju’s learn, is presently dominated by two channels: “Demand is now pushed largely by ETFs and Strategy, each slowing buys not too long ago. If these two channels recuperate, market momentum doubtless returns.” That is a clear, falsifiable thesis: if main institutional conduits re-accelerate, spot ought to regain buoyancy; if they continue to be tepid, realized cap can nonetheless grind greater on regular inflows whereas worth chops as distribution absorbs them.

Cohort profitability offers a further boundary situation for eventualities. “Short-term whales (mostly ETFs) from the previous 6 months are close to break-even. Long-term whales are up ~53%,” Ju wrote. Historically, cycle tops have usually coincided with excessive unrealized revenue ratios for dominant cohorts, creating structural promote strain when each marginal uptick unlocks vital positive aspects.

Ju is successfully saying we’re not there. At the identical time, he cautions that the market’s regime might have already decoupled from the textbook four-year cadence: “In the previous, the market moved in a transparent four-year cycle of accumulation and distribution between retail buyers and whales. Now it’s tougher to foretell the place and the way a lot new liquidity will enter, making it unlikely for Bitcoin to comply with the identical cyclical sample once more.”

Taken collectively, the thread sketches a market with three defining traits. First, fundamentals of “cash in” look resilient: realized cap rising, holders broadly in revenue, and community safety hitting new highs. Second, microstructure is unspectacular and even a contact cautionary: fewer whales seeding BTC-collateralized longs, whereas system leverage stays high sufficient to destabilize clear strikes. Third, the demand baton is concentrated in ETF and company treasury channels which have not too long ago eased off—the very actors whose re-acceleration might reignite momentum.

At press time, BTC traded at $107,609.