Bitcoin Price Keeps Higher Lows as Holder Cost Basis Gap Shifts

• Bitcoin trades above the average purchase price of both major holder groups.
• The short-term holder cost basis keeps rising while the price moves sideways.
• Long-term holders’ cost basis is slipping as older, higher-priced coins change hands.
• Leverage and funding remain moderate after the September rally.

Bitcoin traded near $83,700 on Thursday, October 1, almost unchanged over the past week, while on-chain data shows its two main holder groups moving in opposite directions beneath that flat price. On-chain analyst Axel Adler Jr reports that the average cost basis of short-term holders, meaning the average price at which coins held for less than about 155 days last changed hands, rose 1.2% in seven days to $73,700, while the long-term holder cost basis slipped to $48,800. BTC therefore sits 13.7% and 72% above those levels. The split shows where fresh supply is entering the market as Bitcoin consolidates after September’s push to $87,215, and it marks the price at which the newest buyers would fall back to breakeven. Price, on-chain and derivatives figures in this article reflect data as of 10:00 UTC on October 1.

Short-term holders’ profit margin drops from 15.4% to 13.7% in a week

Between September 24 and October 1, the short-term holder (STH) cost basis climbed from $72,800 to $73,700 while Bitcoin’s price barely moved, so the group’s average unrealized profit narrowed by almost two percentage points. The metric has risen without interruption since August 20, when the rally out of the low $60,000s began drawing in buyers at progressively higher prices, although its weekly growth rate has nearly halved from 2.2% on September 23 to 1.2% now.

This line carries weight because of what happened the last time Bitcoin traded beneath it. From late 2025 through most of the first half of 2026, the price stayed below the STH cost basis and the indicator’s weekly change remained negative for months, leaving recent buyers under water and turning every rebound into an exit opportunity for them. Bitcoin reclaimed the level in August and has held above it since.

Older coins re-entering the market push the two cost bases apart

Realized price, the formal name for cost basis in on-chain analytics, values each coin at the price at which it last moved on the blockchain and averages the result across a group. Coins idle for roughly 155 days count as long-term holdings, and everything younger falls into the short-term group. Each average therefore responds to its own flow of coins.

Every purchase above $73,700 lifts the STH average, and since August nearly every trade has taken place above that line. The long-term average falls when coins carrying an above-average cost basis leave the group. Adler links this week’s decline to coins with a cost basis above the group’s $48,800 average moving again. Coins bought during the 2025 advance past $100,000 fit that profile, since anything purchased above that price is now held at a loss. Once moved, they are repriced near $83,700 and land in the short-term group, adding to the upward drift in its cost basis.

Part of these transfers may come from holders reshuffling coins between their own wallets or exchanges reorganizing cold storage, though Adler notes that such movements usually reflect real selling. A 0.3% weekly drop looks minor on paper, yet the long-term average normally moves so slowly that this reading ranks among the sharpest declines of the year.

Every pullback since August 16 has stopped higher than the last

The daily chart has kept a clean upward structure since the August 16 low at $62,511. The first leg reached about $81,400 in early September, and the pullback that followed bottomed near $74,900 in mid-September, well above the August low. The breakout on September 19-21 then set a new high at $87,215, and every dip since has found buyers between $82,500 and $83,000.

Bitcoin trades above its 20-day average at $81,617 and its 50-day average at $77,676. The 20-day line now nearly overlaps the 0.236 Fibonacci retracement of the August-September rally at $81,385, which places the first support zone between $81,400 and $81,600. A second cluster sits lower, where the 0.382 retracement at $77,778 meets the 50-day average.

The 14-day RSI reads 61.43, meaning gains still outweighed losses over the past two weeks. It has eased from above 70 at the September 21 high and now sits under its own moving average at 64.78. Momentum has cooled, yet sellers have not taken control. Volume has faded steadily since the breakout candles of September 19-21, consistent with a range in which neither buyers nor sellers are committing size.

Open interest sits $40 billion below its 2025 peak as funding hovers near zero

CoinGlass data shows Bitcoin futures open interest at $52.68 billion early Thursday. The figure briefly topped $60 billion around the September 21 high and then eased as leveraged longs closed or were liquidated during the pullback. It remains roughly $40 billion below the autumn 2025 peak above $90 billion, which the market reached while Bitcoin traded well above $100,000.

The OI-weighted funding rate, which holders of long perpetual positions pay to shorts, stood at 0.0024% on Thursday morning. Many exchanges treat 0.01% per eight-hour period as the neutral baseline, which means longs currently pay about a quarter of the standard rate. Funding turned negative during the early-February sell-off and again in April, when shorts kept paying even as the price climbed from the mid-$60,000s, and it peaked near 0.011% in late August as the breakout pulled leveraged buyers in.

MVRV Z-score reclaims its 365-day average while still below zero

CryptoQuant contributor TraderGemin pointed out that Bitcoin’s MVRV Z-score has moved above its 365-day moving average. The metric compares market capitalization with realized capitalization, the combined price paid for all coins in circulation, and scales the gap by volatility, so a low reading indicates that the price has not stretched far beyond what holders actually paid.

MVRV Z-Score Holds Above Its 365-Day Average: Long-Term Structure Still Favors the Upside

“Historically, once the MVRV Z-Score moved above its 365-day average, that average often acted as support during the broader bullish phase.” – By @TraderGemin pic.twitter.com/XZbJTMvKbr

— CryptoQuant.com (@cryptoquant_com) October 1, 2026

According to the analyst, that yearly average tended to act as support in previous cycles once the Z-score rose above it during broader uptrends. The current reading still sits below zero and far from the band that marked overheated tops in 2013, 2017 and 2021, which leaves considerable distance before valuation by itself becomes a reason for holders to sell. The historical pattern offers no guidance on timing.

A flat price would erase most of the short-term cushion within three months

If Bitcoin stays near $83,700 and the STH cost basis keeps rising at 1.2% per week, the gap between them shrinks by roughly $880 every seven days, enough to close most of the current $10,000 margin within about a quarter without any decline in price. The slowdown from 2.2% to 1.2% weekly growth stretches that window, and another step down would stretch it further.

On the chart, a daily close above $87,215 would add another higher high to the sequence. A move through the $81,400 zone would send the price toward the $77,700 cluster, a retracement that would still leave the higher-lows structure intact. A break below $74,900 would end that structure and bring the short-term holders’ average entry within reach, the level whose loss in late 2025 turned recent buyers into sellers on every rebound through the first half of 2026.

Coins bought between $60,000 and $66,000 in June and July will cross the 155-day threshold from mid-November into early January. As they age out of the short-term group, they remove cheap supply from its average and push the STH cost basis higher regardless of price action. When they join the long-term group, their cost basis sits above that group’s $48,800 average. That shift could reverse the recent decline in the LTH realized price over the same period. Adler notes that a return of the LTH weekly change to zero would indicate that the long-term cost basis has stabilized.