Bitcoin Not “Pumpable” Right Now, Says CryptoQuant Founder: Here’s Why

The founder of CryptoQuant has explained that Bitcoin is not “pumpable” right now based on the divergence in the Market Cap and Realized Cap.

In a new post on X, CryptoQuant founder Ki Young Ju has talked about the difference in growth that the BTC Market Cap and Realized Cap have witnessed over the past year.

The Market Cap here is just the total value of the cryptocurrency’s supply at the current spot price. The Realized Cap is also a model to calculate BTC’s total valuation, but it doesn’t take such a simple approach. This on-chain capitalization model assumes that the ‘real’ value of any coin in circulation is equal to the spot price at which it was last transacted on the blockchain.

In short, what the Realized Cap signifies is the amount that the Bitcoin investors as a whole have put into the cryptocurrency. In contrast, the Market Cap represents the value that they are holding in the present.

Generally, changes in the former, which can be thought of as capital inflows/outflows, result in changes in the latter. Below is a chart that tracks how the Market Cap is reacting to fluctuations in the Realized Cap.

As displayed in the graph, the growth rate difference between the Bitcoin Market Cap and Realized Cap was positive in mid-2025, suggesting that the Market Cap was going up faster than the Realized Cap. This changed in the last quarter of the year, however, with the indicator dropping into the negative zone as the market observed a crash.

2026 has only seen the metric drop deeper as the price decline in the cryptocurrency has continued. “Bitcoin is not pumpable right now,” noted Young Ju. The CryptoQuant founder has pointed out the contrast in market dynamics between 2024 and 2025 to showcase his point.

In 2024, a $10 billion increase in the Realized Cap was enough to cause a $26 billion jump in the Market Cap. Over the course of 2025, a whopping $308 billion in capital flowed into the asset, yet the Market Cap actually fell by $98 billion. “Selling pressure is too heavy for any multiplier effect,” explained the analyst.

In some other news, New Whales on the Bitcoin network have been capitulating recently, as CryptoQuant community analyst Maartunn has pointed out in an X post.

“New Whales” are the investors who entered the market within the past 155 days and are holding more than 1,000 BTC in their balance. During the recent price drawdown, this cohort took massive losses, including a loss-taking spike of $1.46 billion on February 5th.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is floating around $68,500, down over 12% in the last seven days.