If $80K breaks, the bitcoin line that matters is $75.9K

Bitcoin is sitting right on $80,000 as the Fed's two-day meeting gets under way, with the rate decision due on Wednesday. Everyone is asking whether $80K holds. Our data says the line that really matters is a little lower: $75,944, the average price paid for the bitcoin that moved in the last 155 days, the coins we count as short-term holders'. At 13:00 UTC on Tuesday the price was $80,310, about 6% above it.

On our Short-Term Holder Cost Basis Model (Plus), Monday's close at $80,022 was the nearest the price has come to that line since 19 August, the day bitcoin got back above it.

Why this line matters

Short-term holders own 3.78 million BTC today. While the price is above their average cost, most of them sit on a profit and dips tend to get bought. Below it, most of them are underwater, and every bounce turns into a chance to get out at break-even. That's why this line tends to act as support in an uptrend and as resistance in a downtrend.

It isn't only small buyers sitting there. On our New and Old Whale Realized Price chart (Pro), large recent buyers, entities holding at least 1,000 BTC with exchanges left out, paid $75,851 on average. That's within $100 of the short-term holder line, so a break below it would put both groups underwater at the same moment.

What happened the last two times

The last two times bitcoin closed below this line, it kept falling for months.

After the October 2025 break, bitcoin didn't close back above the line until 4 May 2026. After the May break, it took until 19 August.

The line hasn't always been that unforgiving. In 2023 and 2024 bitcoin closed below it fourteen times, the deepest fall within three months of a break was 16.5%, and the price was back above within seven weeks every time. In those years new money kept arriving and dips under the line were bought. The last two breaks came in a falling market, and the line flipped from support to resistance.

You can follow the gap itself on the STH-MVRV chart (Plus), the price divided by the line. It closed at 1.0535 on Monday, its lowest since 19 August. Below 1 means the average recent buyer is underwater.

The levels to watch

• $80,000: the round number the market is defending into the Fed.
• $75,944: short-term holders' average cost, with large recent buyers at $75,851 right beside it.
• $83,257: the top of the band. A quarter of short-term holder coins last moved above this price, so those holders are already underwater and likely sellers into any bounce toward the mid-$80Ks.
• $64,723: the bottom of the band. A quarter of short-term holder coins last moved below it.
• $58,713: the Realized Price, the average cost of every bitcoin. Both of this year's lows stopped just above it: the 5 February close was 4.4% above it and the 30 June close 1.5% above it. The full daily chart opens with a free account.

The week's catalysts are the Fed's decision on Wednesday at 18:00 UTC, the PCE inflation report on Thursday and Friday's options expiry, which you can follow on our free options expiry calendar. Our Fear and Greed Index is free too, with no sign-up.

How we measure it

Every bitcoin output carries the price of the day it was created. We split the supply by age: outputs created less than 155 days ago are short-term holder coins, and the rest are long-term holder coins. The short-term holder realized price is what the young coins cost at those creation prices, divided by the number of young coins. The bands are the 25th and 75th percentiles of the same creation prices, weighted by BTC.

Everything is read from our own Bitcoin Core node and updated hourly, and a closed UTC day is final once it has six confirmations. These are output ages, not identified people, and exchange and change movements are not taken out, so "short-term holders" means young coins rather than a list of wallets. The comparisons in this story use daily closes; today's figures are the open day at 13:00 UTC. Our realized price guide explains the idea in more depth, and the MVRV guide shows how the same ratio works across the whole market.