Bitcoin’s Bull Score, a composite gauge run by on-chain analytics firm CryptoQuant, climbed to 90 out of 100 after bitcoin closed above its 365-day moving average last week. The same data set that pushed the score to near its ceiling shows the thing that usually sustains a rally fading: buyers are stepping back.
Spot demand contracted by roughly 170,000 BTC over the past 30 days, by CryptoQuant’s estimate, and futures demand growth fell about 90 percent in 15 days. Bitcoin traded just above $83,300 in Asian hours Wednesday, up about 0.4 percent in 24 hours but down from its eight-month high near $87,400 reached late last week.
The gap between the two readings is the story traders are watching. A composite score captures market structure: where price sits relative to long averages, whether holders are in profit, how the network is behaving. Demand gauges measure flow: is new money arriving fast enough to absorb everything the market has to sell. They can disagree for weeks before price picks a side.
What the Bull Score measures
The index bundles several on-chain and market indicators into a single 0-to-100 reading. A break of the 365-day moving average counts as bull-market confirmation in CryptoQuant’s framework, which is what drove the latest reading up. At 90, the score sits 10 points below its maximum, territory the firm associates with constructive market regimes.
The divergence is the point. CryptoQuant’s apparent demand measure compares newly mined bitcoin with changes in the supply of coins that have stayed unmoved for at least a year. On that gauge, the market is running down its stock of new buyers rather than adding to it. Two gauges from the same firm are describing two different halves of the market: the regime indicator says bull, the demand gauges say thinning.
Profits sitting in the tape
Recent buyers hold an average unrealized profit of 33 percent, the highest since December 2024, CryptoQuant estimates. That matters more than a curiosity. Profit-taking waves tend to start early in holder cohorts, not at tops, and heavy unrealized gain gives the marginal seller more reason to act on a dip than on a break.
The shape of the holder base makes it concrete. On-chain estimates put roughly 1.8 million BTC with a cost basis between $80,000 and $85,000, the band where a large share of coins last changed hands during the late-2025 distribution phase. That is a natural supply shelf as price climbs through it, since holders who bought near the top think in breakeven terms.
Derivatives positioning folds into the same calculus. Open interest climbed from about $52 billion at the end of September to roughly $56.2 billion in the first two days of October, per CoinGlass, an increase of about $4.2 billion as price pushed from $83,500 through $87,000. Analyst Axel Adler Jr measured futures buying pressure at its highest since August 19, with open interest up nearly 9,000 BTC in a 24-hour window, and argued that a drop below $83,000 could trip liquidations of newly opened longs.
Options books told a similar risk-on story to the upside. About $2.1 billion of call exposure sat at the $90,000 strike on Deribit, $2.4 billion at $95,000 and $1.8 billion at $100,000, per data cited by market analysts. Those are bets that need fresh buying, not forced flows, to reach their targets.
Cost-basis zones in the path
The supply map adds friction higher up. CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost estimates holders who bought 18 months to two years ago carry an average cost basis near $88,350, while the six-to-12-month cohort sits at $89,200 and has been underwater for close to a year. He treats these as emotionally loaded zones rather than technical levels, bands where holders who bled for months may exit near breakeven in size.
Bitwise’s October note reads the same structure from the other side. Bitcoin has reclaimed cost-basis thresholds the firm tracks for shifts to risk-on conditions: a short-term holder basis near $73,000, a true market mean around $77,000 and an estimated spot-ETF investor basis near $83,000. The firm values reference bands at about $90,000 and $95,000 for 1.5- and two-standard-deviation readings, with Fibonacci-derived points near $92,000 and $100,000. A run through $95,000, in its sample, happens on fewer than 2 percent of days.
There is a bullish analog in the same file. CryptoQuant’s Accumulation Trend bands contracted in early October, a pattern that appeared twice in 2025 before sharp advances, once in April when bitcoin traded near $84,000 and later climbed toward $109,000. Glassnode also noted thinner sell-side liquidity above the market after the $85,000 shelf cleared. Contraction in seller pressure and thinning in demand are two ways of describing the same quiet book.
What resolves the gap
A 90 Bull Score can ratchet down as its components catch up to softer conditions, or fresh buyers can arrive and validate it. Either path is plausible in short order. The most-watched catalysts run through US macro: soft PCE inflation data last week cooled October Fed rate-hike odds, and Fed governor Michael Barr signaled more hikes remained possible, leaving traders split on the path into year end. Bitcoin has traded like a rate-sensitive asset all autumn, so those odds, along with spot ETF net flows, move the tape faster than any on-chain signal.
On levels, the technical floor is $83,000, Adler’s liquidation line, and $87,400, the recent high. Between them sits the $85,000 shelf that knocked back several earlier rallies before last week’s break. Volumes at these levels do the talking: when spot demand contracts while open interest rises, moves tend to be leverage-driven, which cuts both ways once liquidation engines start clicking. A close above $87,400 on real spot volume would quiet most of the demand-side doubt. A loss of $83,000 would do the opposite.