07 Dec 2021
Bitcoin holders’ unrealized profits plummet
The bitcoin price’s latest drop has made the unrealized profit in the network much smaller, as measured by the Market Value to Realized Value.
We find Market Value to Realized Value (MVRV) for a crypto asset by dividing the market value by the realized value. The realized value is all the UTXOs (units) valued at the price they last were moved - added together. The realized value can be viewed as the cost basis of the network, so we can use MVRV as a proxy to estimate the unrealized profit.MVRV can be used to get a sense of when the price is above or below “fair value”. For example, during the bull market this spring, bitcoin’s MVRV topped out at 3.96. This was the highest level seen since December 2017, when it reached 4.72. Conversely, when the market bottomed out in the middle of July, it briefly touched 1.54. Cryptoquant has set an upper threshold (sell) for bitcoin at 3.7 and a lower threshold at 1 (buy).As the bitcoin price increased in October, MVRV climbed up to 2.82 at the peak. The recent sell-off made the unrealized profit in the network much smaller, and MVRV is currently sitting at 2.Bitcoin’s current MVRV of 2 is well within the healthy range since most bitcoin holders don’t have huge unrealized profits right now. Naturally, investors are less likely to sell and take profit when their unrealized profit is low.