by Vincent Muthee
Bitcoin (BTC) has been range-bound between $86,000 and $90,000 for the past few weeks. However, the price of the #1 cryptocurrency by market capitalization has shown signs of stabilization.
On the day, BTC was trading at $89,707.82, having rallied only 0.25% over the past 24 hours. Despite this stabilization, a CryptoQuant analysis suggests that the king crypto could be headed into a bear market.
Supply in Profit Signals Bitcoin’s Late-Cycle Transition
According to a recent analysis by CryptoQuant analyst ‘Yonsei_dent’, Bitcoin’s Supply in Profit (%) indicator highlights that BTC is in a transition period. This indicator is used to monitor the proportion of the Bitcoin supply with unrealized profit.
Traders commonly use it to track the position of Bitcoin in a market cycle. Normally, a reading above 80% is associated with a euphoric bull market. However, levels between 55% and 80% indicate a transition phase, while a value below 55% indicates a bear market.
Currently, the Supply in Profit indicator stands at 68.85%, suggesting that Bitcoin is squarely within the transition zone.
However, ‘Yonsei_dent’ claims that a prolonged price consolidation and Supply in Profit stagnation in the current region often results in a stronger bearish market movement.
“If price action continues to consolidate and the metric stagnates around the 70% level, historical cycles suggest an increasing likelihood of a transition into a broader bear market,” he wrote.
More importantly, the metric has followed a consistent downward trajectory since October 2025. The CryptoQuant analyst argues that the duration and slope of this decline matter more than the absolute level.
“This is not a short-lived pullback,” Yonsei_dent noted, adding that the trend reflects “accumulated fatigue typically observed in the late stages of a cycle.” Previous cycles showed similar patterns before broader market weakness emerged.
On the other hand, Yonsei_dent states that a sustained recovery in Supply in Profit back above the 75%–80% range would reopen the case for cycle continuation. Until that happens, the analyst views the market as being in an early transition phase where capital preservation takes priority.
More Trouble for BTC Ahead? CryptoQuant Head of Research
Julio Moreno, the Head of Research at CryptoQuant, has also contested the ongoing narrative that whales are buying enormous amounts of Bitcoin. In a recent post on X, he confirmed that the whale data has been mostly misrepresented due to large movements by crypto exchanges.
Data without exchange addresses shows that whale balances are declining. A similar trend is also visible on addresses with 100-1K Bitcoin.
“We have data that removes all exchange addresses, and it data shows whale balances declining (first chart). The same applies for addresses with 100-1K Bitcoin, which captures ETFs holdings (second chart),” Moreno noted.
These findings weaken the bullish accumulation narrative. Coupled with the cycle analysis by Yonsei_dent, the data only indicates distribution, not accumulation. Bitcoin may avoid a full bear market, although on-chain indicators suggest caution over over-confidence.
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