Stretched Profits and Cooling Demand Put Bitcoin Rally on Pause — For Now: Report

Bitcoin Magazine

Stretched Profits and Cooling Demand Put Bitcoin Rally on Pause — For Now: Report

Bitcoin’s recent run may be slowing down — but that doesn’t mean it isn’t in a bull market. 

That’s according to a new report by data analytics firm CryptoQuant, which said signs of profit-taking were appearing. 

Bitcoin’s price recently stood at $82,939, down nearly 4% over a seven-day period, after surging to an eight-month high of $87,251 last week. 

Last week’s surge led CryptoQuant to declare that the coin was in a bull market. The reason: the leading cryptocurrency crossed above its 365-day moving average — the “definitive technical signal” that has marked the start of Bitcoin’s bull markets in past cycles, according to the firm. 

But short-term traders — who hold coins for one to three months — are sitting on an average unrealized profit of about 33%, CryptoQuant added. That’s the highest since December 2024, and margins that high have historically tempted people to sell.

The report noted that holders last week realized 25.7K BTC in profit, the largest single day of 2026, one day after bitcoin’s price smashed the eight-month high. 

CryptoQuant added that while bitcoin’s price still has room to run, the rally is losing steam and a near-term correction looks increasingly likely.

While CryptoQuant didn’t predict how far the bitcoin price could fall, it did identify three support levels where a correction could find a floor: the 365-day moving average at about $80,000, the 200-day moving average at about $71,000, and traders’ on-chain realized price at about $67,000.

As long as these levels hold, the firm said, a pullback would be a healthy consolidation within a young bull market rather than a trend reversal.

Bitcoin notched a record of $126,080 in October of last year but then began to sink later that month after the biggest liquidation event in crypto history saw over $19 billion in bets closed. 

In the first half of this year it continued its plunge after the Federal Reserve made it clear it was in no hurry to lower interest rates and investors increasingly threw money at artificial intelligence-related stocks to get returns. 

But the so-called debasement trade — where investors throw money at an asset to hedge against a currency losing its value — is hot again after total U.S. debt topped $40 trillion for the first time in July. 

Bitcoin and precious metals like gold have done well in the past when the dollar has weakened. 

This post Stretched Profits and Cooling Demand Put Bitcoin Rally on Pause — For Now: Report first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.