🎧 Morning Brief #155 - audio debate on today’s market setup
Bitcoin exited the zone of maximum pressure on short-term holders in April, but has not yet returned to a full premium above their cost basis. A second metric confirms the improvement: STH-SOPR 7D is back above 1.0, meaning short-term sellers are no longer realizing losses on average.
TL;DR
The brief shows how, after the spring stress, pressure on short-term holders has eased noticeably. The core logic: the recovery continues, but for a more sustained bullish regime the market needs to bring price back above the STH cost basis.
Bitcoin Short-Term Cost Basis vs Premium/Discount
The metric compares BTC price to the short-term cost basis and shows whether the market is at a premium or discount to short-term holders' cost basis.
In early April, Bitcoin was trading deeply below the short-term holders' cost basis: the discount reached -21.6% and the Pressure Score climbed to 66.0. By April 24, the picture had changed: price rose to $78.2K, the short-term cost basis declined to $83.0K, and the discount narrowed to -5.7%. The premium is still at 0.0%, meaning the market has not yet returned above the STH cost basis.
Pressure has eased noticeably, but the market has not yet recovered a full bullish structure. The key confirmation signal is a return of price above the short-term cost basis and a transition of the metric from discount to premium. Until that happens, the current recovery is better read as a structural repair phase, not the start of a sustained impulse.
Bitcoin: Short Term Holder SOPR (7D)
STH-SOPR 7D shows whether short-term holders are selling on average at a profit or a loss; the 1.0 level is the key boundary.
In early April, STH-SOPR 7D was below 1.0 and dipped to 0.989, confirming that short-term holders were selling at a loss. After that, the metric recovered and by April 23 had risen to 1.004. This is an important shift: the market has exited the realized loss zone for the short-term cohort.
Takeaway: seller behavior has become less stressed. But the value is only slightly above 1.0, so this is not a signal of euphoria or aggressive demand. It is rather an early confirmation that selling pressure is easing and short-term participants have stopped selling below their cost basis.
The combination of the two charts delivers the key conclusion of the day: price is still below the STH cost basis, but STH-SOPR has already returned above 1.0. This means the market has begun to recover before fully restoring bullish structure on the cost basis.
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FAQ
What matters more here - the discount or the SOPR? What matters is the combination. The discount shows that price is still below the short-term holders' cost basis, while SOPR shows that current selling has already stopped being loss-making on average. This is an improvement, but not a final confirmation of a bullish regime.
Where is the regime-change threshold? The key threshold is a return of BTC above the short-term cost basis around $83.0K. If price consolidates above that level, the discount disappears and the market moves into premium. If price begins to fall back below it and STH-SOPR returns under 1.0, the April recovery will prove to be a weak bounce within a stress regime.
CONCLUSIONS
The April picture has improved noticeably: the STH discount narrowed from the extreme zone to -5.7%, the Pressure Score fell from 66.0 to 24.9, and STH-SOPR 7D returned above 1.0. The current regime is a neutral recovery after stress, not risk-on. The main trigger for improvement is BTC consolidating above the short-term cost basis around $83.0K; the main risk is STH-SOPR returning below 1.0, which would again indicate short-term holders selling at a loss.