Bitcoin has eased from this week’s high near $87,000 and dipped as low as around $83,860 early Thursday, according to CoinGecko data.
The retreat of roughly 3% over 24 hours follows a rebound that took the asset back above $87,000 for the first time since January. On-chain data now points to a familiar source of supply: recent buyers selling into strength.
The move does not erase the September recovery from mid-month lows near $75,000. It does, however, coincide with a clear change in short-term holder behavior. After spending much of the year realizing losses, wallets that have held coins for less than 155 days are again moving Bitcoin at a profit. That shift helps explain why a rally that looked forceful on the way up has lost momentum just below $88,000.
At the time of publishing (6:15 AM UTC), BTC was trading at $84,100 with a 24 hour trading volume of $42.11 billion and market capitalization sitting at $1.68 trillion.
Short-term holders return to profit
In an analysis, CryptoQuant contributor thechessONCHAIN wrote that the seven-day average of Short-Term Holder SOPR closed at 1.01693 on September 22.
SOPR, or Spent Output Profit Ratio, compares the price at which a coin is spent with the price at which it was acquired. A reading above 1 means the average transferred coin is being sold at a profit.
At 1.01693, recently bought coins that moved were sold about 1.7% above cost. That is modest in absolute terms, but elevated for this cohort in 2026. The same seven-day average sat below 1.0 on 265 of the previous 365 days. Against last year, Tuesday’s print sat in the 97th percentile. Only nine days were higher, and all nine fell between August 22 and August 30, when the yearly high reached 1.02924.
CryptoQuant had already flagged the regime change earlier in September. After Bitcoin reclaimed the short-term holder’s realized price in mid-August, profitable coins began to dominate exchange inflows. The firm’s account said short-term holders had flipped from capitulation to profit-taking, with hundreds of thousands of BTC sent to exchanges as the cost basis of newer buyers rose.
A mid-September CryptoQuant note from analyst Darkfost added that a sustained stretch of short-term holder profitability has historically appeared when bearish momentum starts to fade. The same research stressed the distinction that matters for price: profits that settle and then stay in wallets support trend change; profits that are immediately spent can cap a bounce.
That is the tension now visible in the tape. Bitcoin closed near $86,198 on September 22, about 47% above the past year’s lowest daily close of $58,535 on June 30, per the same CryptoQuant write-up. Recent buyers finally have an exit. They are using it.
A pause, not a proven top
Derivatives data on CryptoQuant shows the pullback was small in spot terms and larger in leverage. Analyst Amr Taha noted that Bitcoin’s drop from about $87,000 to $84,000 was limited to roughly 3.4%, while Binance Bitcoin open interest fell from about $5.4 billion to $4.9 billion between September 21 and 23. Speculators who added exposure into the $87,000 push reduced risk as the advance stalled.
The on-chain authors themselves reject a simple top call. thechessONCHAIN wrote that the current SOPR reading is not a 12-month record and is “not a top signal,” because profit-taking can run alongside rising prices if demand absorbs the supply. The test, in that framing, is whether the seven-day average holds above 1.0. A close back below 1.0 before mid-October would argue the burst of profitability was only a bounce.
Broader structure still differs from the late-2025 peak. Bitcoin remains more than 30% below its October 2025 all-time high near $126,000. Long-term holder supply has been rising as short-term supply has contracted, a transfer The Crypto Times has previously documented.
Additionally, spot Bitcoin ETFs also recorded large creations during the climb through $86,000, showing institutional demand was present even as short-term coins moved.
For now, the immediate picture is narrower. After a fast reclaim of $80,000 and $87,000, the first group with something to sell is selling. Whether that supply is absorbed or drives a deeper retracement will depend on whether new demand continues to meet coins that, for the first time in months, are leaving wallets in the green.
Also read: Bitcoin Price Hits $87,000 for First Time Since January: Can the Rally Hold Into Year-End?
