Short holders of 140,000 BTC are exiting as capitulation pressure builds on Bitcoin

Short-term holders are currently facing an unrealized loss of around 24%.

Bitcoin short-holders continued to realize losses as the chain’s data found steady selling pressure over the past week.

According to Axel Adler Jr.’s latest analysis, the Short-Term Spent Profit Ratio (STH SOPR), a metric that measures whether coins held for less than 155 days are selling at a profit or loss, has remained above the neutral level of 1.0 for seven of the last eight days from March 2 to 9.

A reading below 1.0 indicates that the group is selling at prices below their purchase price.

Weak hands sell Bitcoin

As of March 9, the STH SOPR intraday average was 0.987, and only six of the 35 observed blocks, or about 17%, closed above the 1.0 threshold. The 7-day moving average for the metric remained near 0.992, which supports the idea that losses among short-term holders persisted over several consecutive days rather than as an isolated event.

During the same period, the metric exceeded 1.0 only once, on March 4, when the price of Bitcoin briefly reached $74,000 before returning to loss selling territory. The minimum weekly reading was recorded on March 6 at 0.979, while on March 8 it was 0.991. Both of these cases confirm that most of the transactions from this group were executed at a lower cost.

Adler explained that the first clear signal of a change in market conditions would be STH SOPR closing above 1.0 for several consecutive days.

Capitulation

In addition to profitability metrics, Adler considered changes in the overall supply of short-term investors. Over the past two weeks, the total volume of coins within a group of short holders has dropped from about 6.06 million BTC to about 5.92 million BTC. This basically showed that about 140,000 BTC left the cohort.

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This reflects the reduction or surrender through practical loss or natural aging of coins to long-term owner status after passing the 155-day threshold. At the same time, the sales price of the cohort remained around $89,028, while the market price during the analyzed period was around $67,000.

The difference represents an unrealized loss of about 24% for the average short-term holder. Adler observed that this difference between the realized price and the current market value creates a structural surplus of supply in the market. As prices recover, some short-term investors who bought at higher levels may use rallies as an opportunity to exit positions without losses, possibly adding supply and reducing the power of upward moves.

The combination of these two indicators points to an ongoing “group purge” in which the more price-sensitive segment of the market is gradually being phased out by selling pressure rather than by revenue recovery.