It is a good moment to take Bitcoin’s onchain pulse. The starting point is June, when price fell roughly 20 percent from an end-of-May high near $73.7K to a low around $59K, then bounced and settled range-bound in the low-to-mid $60Ks. Through that drawdown the structure held: reserves drained, old coins stayed dormant, and short-term holders stopped selling at a loss. This mid-July check-in asks a simple question: is that health still intact.
Is Conviction Holding?
Conviction shows up most clearly in the behavior of long-term holders and in coin dormancy. Long-term holders are the cohort that has weathered prior volatility, and their tendency to sit tight during quiet periods keeps available supply thin. Dormancy, which measures how long coins have stayed unspent before moving, is the complementary read. Low dormancy means old coins are staying put.
The June backdrop showed exactly this pattern, with old supply largely unmoved through the stress. The mid-July question is whether that continues. If long-term holders stay patient and dormancy remains low, conviction is intact. A sudden wave of old coins moving would be the first thing to question, since it can mark experienced holders taking profit or trimming risk.
Is Supply Still Leaving Exchanges?
The steady drain of exchange reserves was June’s most reassuring signal. Falling balances mean holders are choosing custody over liquidity, which shrinks the pool of coins immediately available for sale. For this check-in, the watch is simply whether the drain persists. Continued outflows confirm the accumulation behavior seen during the dip, while a reversal of coins flowing back onto exchanges would warrant caution. Our exchange reserves explainer covers the mechanics in full.
Where Does Cost-Basis Support Sit?
Cost basis matters because it marks the price at which a cohort breaks even, and those levels often act as support or resistance. The short-term holder cost basis is especially worth tracking, since newer buyers tend to support price when they are in profit and turn into sellers when they fall underwater. Holding above that cost basis keeps recent buyers constructive. Slipping below it can flip sentiment quickly. Watching where price sits relative to this zone gives a practical read on near-term support.
What Would Flip the Picture?
Reading market valuation more broadly helps frame the bigger picture. The MVRV Z-Score is one of the cleaner tools for gauging whether the market sits at a historical extreme or somewhere more neutral, and our MVRV Z-Score guide explains how to interpret it. Coming out of a drawdown, a neutral to modestly positive reading tends to be more stable than a stretched one. The factors that would flip the constructive picture are clear enough: old coins beginning to move, exchange reserves reversing higher, short-term holders dropping below their cost basis, and accumulation giving way to distribution.
Who Is Buying?
The Accumulation Trend Score helps answer who is on the bid. Weighted by holding size, it leans toward 1 when participants are accumulating and toward 0 when they are distributing. A score trending toward accumulation reinforces the base built in June, while a drift toward distribution would be a yellow flag. Our Accumulation Trend Score explainer details how to read it across cohorts.
What to Watch
The mid-July health check comes down to whether June’s resilience is still in place. Watch long-term holder behavior and dormancy for conviction, exchange reserves for continued outflows, the short-term holder cost basis for support, the MVRV Z-Score for valuation context, and the Accumulation Trend Score for who is buying. If those readings stay constructive, the structure that survived the June stress test is holding. If they begin to roll over, that is the signal to pay closer attention. None of this is a prediction, just a disciplined way to let the data lead.
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