4M Bitcoin Bought Above $85K Could Cap Recovery: Glassnode

By Decrypt Agent

Bitcoin's long-term holders are sitting on losses on about 4 million BTC bought between $85,000 and $118,000, and many may sell if the price climbs back toward that level, according to a note from on-chain analytics firm Glassnode.

Glassnode, which defines long-term holders as those holding coins for more than 155 days, said most of that block was bought in 2025. More than half of all long-term holder coins were bought above the current price, according to the note, published Wednesday ahead of the Federal Reserve's rate decision.

That block is worth about $326 billion at Bitcoin's current price of around $81,400, up 1.2% over the past 24 hours but about 35% below its all-time high of $126,080.

Glassnode said a band between $84,000 and $85,000 has turned Bitcoin back four times this year, and that the asset has closed above it on only five days since January. Bitcoin last broke above it in September, peaking at $87,100.

ETF holders are near break-even too. Glassnode puts the average price U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs paid for their coins at $81,500. Bloomberg Intelligence ETF analyst James Seyffart estimated the figure at just under $82,000 in a tweet on Wednesday, adding that Bitcoin has hovered around that level since the end of August.

Seyffart's chart put ETF holders' average unrealized loss at about $2.63 billion as of Monday. In replies, he said the estimate tracks only fund flows, not what secondary-market buyers paid.

Rates, flows and the carry trade

The Fed held its benchmark rate at 3.75% to 4.00% on Wednesday in a 10-2 vote, with Governor Lisa Cook and Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack dissenting in favor of a hike. Traders had put the odds of another quarter-point hike in December above 70% before the decision.

Tim Sun, senior researcher at HashKey, argued that a December hike had been priced in to a certain extent. "What truly constrains Bitcoin's performance," he told Decrypt, "is the persistently high U.S. Treasury yields and real interest rates, which are significantly raising the opportunity cost for investors holding risk assets."

The 10-year Treasury yield stood just under 5% at midday on Thursday, according to CNBC, down from 5.05% at Wednesday's close and a 52-week high of 5.37% on October 7.

Sun added that lower funding rates on Bitcoin perpetual futures have squeezed returns on cash-and-carry arbitrage, which pairs spot Bitcoin with short futures. Galaxy Research found that nine hedge funds and banks cut 68,000 BTC worth of spot ETF exposure as that trade dried up, while wealth platforms and sovereign funds added.

ETF flows have picked up this week. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs took in about $424 million from Monday to Wednesday, per SoSoValue data, after $635 million left the funds on October 22.

"Any rally above $85,000 could face selling pressure from long-term holders seeking to break even," Sun said, echoing Glassnode.

Both pointed to light selling, however. Glassnode said holders have realized smaller losses with each dip since August: at the August low, realized losses outweighed profits by about $630 million in a day, while around a dip on October 24 the largest daily net loss was about $27 million.

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"The core issue facing the market right now is not panic selling, but rather insufficient new buying interest to support a sustained recovery," Sun said.

On the downside, Glassnode pointed to about $42 million in bids between $78,000 and $79,000 on Binance, and the average cost basis of newer buyers at $75,800.

Sun expects Bitcoin to keep trading between $75,000 and $85,000 in the short term until macro liquidity improves and ETFs resume continuous net inflows. Whether selling pressure near $85,000 can be absorbed "will serve as an important signal to determine whether the market can regain strength," he said.

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