A trend guage tracked on onchain analysis firm CryptoQuant is near its ceiling. The buyers who drove BTC to an eight-month high are already pulling back.
Bitcoin rally shows signs of cooling even as a 'bull score' gauge nears its perfect score
A trend guage tracked on onchain analysis firm CryptoQuant is near its ceiling. The buyers who drove BTC to an eight-month high are already pulling back.
Bitcoin’s rally is showing signs of cooling despite CryptoQuant’s Bull Score reaching 90 out of 100, as the cryptocurrency slipped from an eight-month high near $87,400 to about $83,300. Spot demand contracted by roughly 170,000 Bitcoin over the past 30 days, while growth in speculative futures demand plunged 90 percent in 15 days, making further near-term gains harder to sustain. Profit-taking and exchange deposits are increasing, with recent Bitcoin buyers holding average unrealized gains of 33 percent and altcoin deposits reaching their highest level since October 2025.
A trend gauge is showing signs of a cooloff after bitcoin's rally pushed it to just 10 points short of a perfect score.
Bitcoin rose 0.4% to just above $83,300 as of Wednesday Asian morning hours, down from an eight-month high near $87,400.
CryptoQuant, an onchain analysis firm, pegs its Bull Score at 90 out of 100. The score rolls onchain and market indicators into a single reading, and it jumped after bitcoin broke above its 365-day moving average last week, a break the firm treats as confirmation of a bull market.
The buying behind that move is already fading. CryptoQuant estimates spot demand has shrunk by about 170,000 BTC over the past 30 days.
SOL and ZEC led the majors, each up nearly 2%, to about $119 and just above $1,400. XRP gained about 1% to just under $1.50, and ether, BNB and TRX each added less than 1%, CoinDesk data shows.
CryptoQuant measures demand by comparing newly mined bitcoin with changes in the pile of coins that haven't moved for a year or more. That gauge, which it calls apparent demand, has been contracting all month. The market is absorbing fewer coins than are becoming available.
Futures demand is cooling faster. Growth in speculative futures demand dropped from about 164,000 BTC on Sept. 14 to 16,000 BTC on Sept. 29, a 90% drop in 15 days.
Recent buyers are sitting on an average unrealized profit of 33%, the widest since December 2024. They locked in gains on 25,700 BTC on Sept. 22, the largest single day of profit-taking this year.
"Without fresh demand, rallies struggle to extend," Julio Moreno, head of research at CryptoQuant, wrote in the report. "With spot demand still in contraction and futures growth stalling, near-term upside becomes harder to sustain."
Altcoin holders are moving coins onto exchanges too. CryptoQuant counted 76,000 altcoin deposits to exchanges over seven days, the most since October 2025, sent from 51,000 separate addresses. Coins sitting on an exchange can be sold in seconds, so that supply is now within easy reach of any bounce.
Bitcoin's small gain came with a rebound across Asia. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose 0.9%, with 10 of its 11 industry groups higher, and bonds steadied after a bruising selloff. SoftBank Group, an OpenAI investor, jumped more than 6% after Bloomberg reported that the AI startup is seeking at least $30 billion in fresh funding at a $1.4 trillion valuation. Equity-index futures pointed to gains in Europe and on Wall Street.
Traders are waiting on a key U.S. inflation reading later in the day for clues on where interest rates go next. A high print tends to raise the odds of a hike, which lifts the dollar and weighs on risk assets like bitcoin, while a low one tilts the odds toward a cut and tends to help crypto.
Newsletters
1XRP Ledger starts carrying fund records from Brazil operator overseeing $4 trillion12 minutes ago 2Robinhood adds AI agents, perps and weekend trading in push to win active traders6 hours ago 3Cboe, S&P Dow Jones may explore tokenized options contracts under extended licensing deal11 hours ago 4Ethereum users get another way to pay privately as zk.money returns after three years13 hours ago 5Democrats killed the Clarity Act15 hours ago 6Bitcoin surging to $100,000 may be in play, after outperforming gold18 hours ago 7Zcash developers begin moving Tachyon code into faster private-payment software18 hours ago 8Aave leads DeFi higher as crypto shrugs off surging bond market19 hours ago 9Live updates: Bitcoin turns lower as rates rise, consumer confidence plunges19 hours ago 10Blockchain.com targets $500 million IPO this year at up to $6 billion valuation19 hours ago
Beyond the Risk-Free Rate: Diversified Real World Yield in Productive Stablecoins
Beyond the Risk-Free Rate: Diversified Real World Yield in Productive Stablecoins
Diversified RWA stablecoins sustain 5-7% yield from real credit as crypto funding compresses to ~4%. GENIUS pushes yield off-chain; TAM grows to $4B in 3 years.
Diversified RWA stablecoins sustain 5-7% yield from real credit as crypto funding compresses to ~4%. GENIUS pushes yield off-chain; TAM grows to $4B in 3 years.
Why it matters:
Diversified RWA stablecoins sustain 5-7% yield from real credit as crypto funding compresses to ~4%. GENIUS pushes yield off-chain; TAM grows to $4B in 3 years.
Robinhood adds AI agents, perps and weekend trading in push to win active traders
Aave leads DeFi higher as crypto shrugs off surging bond market
Live updates: Bitcoin turns lower as rates rise, consumer confidence plunges
QuantCap