MVRV

How to read it

MVRV compares what the market says Bitcoin is worth against what holders actually paid. Above 1, the average coin is held at a profit; below 1, the average holder is underwater. Readings above roughly 3.7 have clustered near cycle tops — the point where paper gains are large enough that selling becomes tempting — while readings below 1 have marked the deepest bear markets, when the market as a whole is sitting on a loss.

How it's calculated

Market value is price multiplied by circulating supply. Realized value sums every coin at the price it last moved on-chain, which approximates the aggregate cost basis. MVRV is the ratio of the two.

What it did in past cycles

The peak readings have fallen every cycle, and the fall is large:

• 2013-12-04 — 4.72 at the $1,135 top
• 2017-12-16 — 4.43 at the $19,641 top
• 2021-11-08 — 2.86 at the $67,542 top
• 2025-10-06 — 2.29 at the $124,824 top

The last two cycle tops both formed well below the conventional 3.7 line, which is worth knowing before treating that number as a trigger. The plausible reading is that each cycle draws in a larger base of holders at higher prices, so the aggregate cost basis climbs faster and the ratio has less room to stretch.

The trough side has held up better. MVRV fell to 0.56 in January 2015, 0.69 in December 2018 and 0.75 in November 2022 — every major bottom came with the average coin held at a loss. The June 2026 low registered 1.10, which on this metric is not a bottom of that kind.

What it doesn't tell you

Realized value treats the last on-chain movement as a purchase, which it often is not — moving coins between your own wallets resets the cost basis even though nothing was bought or sold. Exchange balances and custodial holdings distort it further, since trades inside an exchange never touch the chain. The thresholds are also descriptive, not laws: they come from a small number of past cycles.

The decay in the peaks is the reason to distrust any fixed line. A rule reading 'sell above 3.7' would have worked in 2013 and 2017 and then never triggered again, through two subsequent cycle tops and drawdowns of 77% and 53%. Whether the ceiling keeps falling, or 2021 and 2025 were simply cycles that ran out of buyers early, cannot be settled with four observations.

Reading it with other metrics

NUPL is the same arithmetic rearranged, so it will never disagree — use one or the other, not both as confirmation. AVIV Z-Score is the more useful companion: it restates valuation in standard deviations, which partly absorbs the drift that makes raw MVRV thresholds decay.

For an independent second opinion, look at something that is not derived from market value at all — the Puell Multiple (miner revenue) or Long-Term SOPR (what patient holders are actually doing). MVRV low and long-term holders spending at a loss is a far stronger statement than either alone.