Bitcoin holding activity suggests that BTC holders have an “on-paper loss.”

Blockchain analytics firm Glassnode says the majority of Bitcoin has been “held” for at least three months in behavior bearing a striking resemblance to previous Bitcoin market bottoms. Bitcoin’s price had just topped $21,000 at the time of writing — making Glassnode remark that around 45% of BTC holders have an “on-paper loss.”

More than 80% of the total U.S. dollar (USD)-denominated wealth invested in Bitcoin has not been touched for at least three months, Glassnode tweeted on July 26.

This indicates that the “majority of BITcoin supply is dormant” and that holders are “increasingly unwilling to spend at lower prices,” said the firm.

Bitcoin’s price is at the time of writing, $21,013, down almost 70% from its all-time high of $69,044 in November 2021. The present price puts around 45% of Bitcoin holders with an on-paper loss, as remarked by crypto intelligence firm IntoTheBlock.

As to the Glassnode chart, other times that saw similar levels of Bitcoin holding were during the end of the bear markets of 2012, 2015, and 2018.

Coinbase’s head of institutional research, David Duong, last week, wrote in a July 12 report titled “The Elusive Bottom” that on-chain data suggests that recent BTC selling has been carried out “almost exclusively” by short-term speculators. Long-term BTC holders “have not been selling into the market weakness,” he added.

“These holders own a highly concentrated ~77% of the total supply, which is down slightly from 80% to start the year but still quite high,” before adding he explained:

“We see this is a positive sentiment indicator as we believe these holders are less likely to sell BTC during turbulent periods.”

Earlier in the month, Glassnode analysts noted that the Bitcoin market had seen an almost total purge of “tourists”, noting that movement on the network is at levels synchronized with the deepest part of the bear market in 2018 and 2019.

Glassnode reported that the number of active addresses and entities had seen a downtrend since November 2021,  suggesting new and existing investors alike are not interacting with the network.

Additionally, the number of non-zero BTC addresses has reached an all-time high of 42,530,652, according to the firm.