XWIN Japan
Why This Year-End Sell-Off Feels Heavier Than Usual: Reading Bitcoin Through STH-SOPR
Bitcoin is currently in a post-decline range-bound phase, with downside pressure conditionally dominant. A key signal is Short Term Holder SOPR (STH-SOPR), which has remained below 1 in recent weeks. This indicates that short-term holders are realizing losses, suggesting selling pressure is driven by loss realization rather than profit-taking. From 2022 to 2024, December followed a relatively consistent pattern. Monthly STH-SOPR averages stayed slightly above 1, while brief dips below 1 appeared toward month-end. These moves reflected year-end position adjustments and tax-related selling, not fear-driven capitulation, and market structure remained broadly intact. December 2025 deviates clearly from this pattern. STH-SOPR has remained structurally below 1, in the 0.97–0.99 range even on a monthly basis. This suggests that calendar effects alone are insufficient to explain the weakness, pointing instead to cycle-related stress. Contributing factors include negative year-to-date price performance, a high short-term holder cost basis following ETF-era accumulation, and ongoing deleveraging in derivatives markets that has increased non-discretionary selling and realized losses. However, this does not automatically signal further downside. Long-term holders remain largely inactive, and older coin movement is limited, indicating the market is not in a broad distribution phase. Historically, such conditions have often appeared near late-stage sell-pressure exhaustion. At present, the base scenario is continued range-bound trading driven by short-term holder loss realization. If STH-SOPR shows sustained recovery toward 1 alongside slowing realized losses, this view would need to be reassessed. （Analysis Report No.159） XWIN Research Japan is a certified analyst at @cryptoquant_com. The XWIN Group operates the DeFi platform “xwin.finance”.