Amid recent Bitcoin losses and volatility, more than a quarter—26%—of the Bitcoin supply is now “underwater,” meaning it is worth less than what it was purchased for.
This marks a stark reversal of fortunes for investors in recent months, according to data collected by market analysis tool CryptoQuant. On December 15, only 0.015% of the BTC supply was “underwater,” meaning only a very slim percentage of BTC held was without an unrealized gain for investors. As recently as January 18, the percentage of Bitcoin being held at a loss sat at just 1.46%.
But according to CryptoQuant’s data, this percentage has been slowly rising since Jan. 18, as macroeconomic concerns have impacted the prices of crypto assets. The Bitcoin price is currently sitting at $76,880.56 after having fallen 3.7% in the past 24 hours, while Ethereum is down 8.1% over the last 24 hours according to CoinGecko data, as U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods came into play on Tuesday at midnight.
The last time such a significant proportion of the Bitcoin supply was in the red was September 6 last year, when the number hit just shy of 30%. Though at the time of writing Bitcoin is trading significantly higher than it was on September 6, when it traded at roughly $56,000, the number of “underwater” Bitcoin remains roughly comparable.
This could reflect the near-record level of inflows into BTC in late 2024 and early 2025, amid the crypto bull run accompanying the election of President Donald Trump, at historically high prices.
Though the number of Bitcoin “underwater” has appeared to broadly correlate with the BTC price over the past few years, it also reflects when speculators or investors choose to enter the market, and the price which they paid.
Institutional investors aren’t exactly piling in at current prices; $326.3 flowed out of Bitcoin ETFs yesterday, and flows have been negative for seven out of the past eight days, as per data from Farside Investors.
Investors have had it worse before
Though a big chunk of BTC investors are now in the red compared to just a few months ago, they are still faring comparatively well relative to some of the crypto world’s darkest hours.
In November 2022, around the time of the collapse of crypto exchange FTX , more than 56% of BTC investors were in the red.
Edited by Stacy Elliott.
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