About Cost Bases

The On-Chain Cost Bases dashboard maps the precise aggregate acquisition price for distinct cohorts of the Bitcoin network, then frames those cohorts against the cycle-extreme valuation models that have historically bracketed every major top and bottom. Moving beyond traditional measures, this dashboard isolates true fundamental support and resistance by calculating the exact dollar value at which different classes of investors (from day-traders to decade-old whales) last moved their coins on the blockchain. The suite features seven primary sub-views. The **Cost Basis Fan** overlays the full stack of fifteen pricing models onto a single chart to define the macro structure: the ten cohort cost bases, three cycle-valuation models (**Terminal Price**, **Balanced Price** and **Delta Top**), and two OCM-original structural models, the **Conviction Price** and the **Overhead Price**. Every line on the fan is rendered as a value-coloured gradient across its own palette, with hover swatches matched to each line and an All / None control that toggles the entire stack on or off in a single tap. The **Cost Basis Heatmap** maps the density of unspent transaction outputs across distinct price levels over time, revealing the heaviest clusters of historical accumulation with a draggable stats panel showing 30-day, 90-day, and 1-year median cost basis levels. The **DCA Channel** plots the theoretical maximum bound (**True Market Mean**) against the ultimate accumulation floor (**CVDD**). The **Key Pricing Levels** view focuses purely on the interaction between the Short-Term Holder cost basis and legacy moving averages. The **LTH / STH Divergence** view isolates the friction between Short-Term and Long-Term Holders, employing a logarithmic extrapolation engine to project future dates where their cost bases will mathematically intersect. The **STH Cost Bands** view renders the Short-Term Holder cost basis as a central line with five σ-multiple bands above and below, a lower-panel histogram of consecutive days spent below cost basis, and an optional STH-SOPR overlay, available in three colour themes. The **Terminal vs Delta Top Oscillator** stacks spot price, Terminal Price and Delta Top on an upper price panel and renders a smoothed, per-cycle z-score of the spread between the two cycle-top models on a lower panel, flagging when the market is statistically overheated or undervalued relative to its own halving epoch. The Individual Cost Basis section allows analysts to inspect fifteen specific on-chain models in isolation, spanning Realised Price, Active Realised Price, STH Realised Price, LTH Realised Price, Investor Price, True Market Mean, Vaulted Price, CVDD, MVRV Average Price, Cointime Price, Terminal Price, Balanced Price, Delta Top, and the two OCM-original models, the Conviction Price and the Overhead Price. The **Conviction Price** is the dormancy-weighted median cost basis of long-held, committed supply, a rising floor that the strongest hands have paid for and tend to defend, while the **Overhead Price** is the nearest-shelf cost basis of the supply trapped above spot, the resistance a rally must climb through. Each of these two carries a companion magnitude, the share of all supply that is committed for the Conviction Price and the share held in loss for the Overhead Price, drawn as a faint fill beneath the line so a thin reading is never mistaken for a thick one. Each individual view supports a togglable Oscillator showing the premium or discount to spot, a Drawdown mode visualising the percentage below cost basis with a gradient fill, and a 90-day Forward Projection cone built from log-linear regression of the trailing 180 days. Every capitalisation-based model is computed against live circulating supply sourced directly on-chain, with a deterministic halving-schedule fallback so the suite never breaks if the supply feed is briefly unavailable.

Signal Zones

Trading Signals by Regime

How It Is Calculated

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between Realised Price and Active Realised Price?

Realised Price accounts for every coin ever mined, including millions of 'lost' coins from the genesis era that drag the average down. Active Realised Price filters out these ancient, dormant coins, providing a much more accurate reflection of the true cost basis for modern, participating investors.

What are Terminal Price and Delta Top?

Both are cycle-top valuation models that have historically bracketed Bitcoin's major peaks. Terminal Price is the Transferred Price (itself derived from CVDD) multiplied by 21, while Delta Top is the gap between the Realised Cap and the all-time Average Cap, scaled by seven and divided by circulating supply to express it as a price. When spot price climbs into the zone defined by these two models, the market is trading at a historically euphoric premium and cycle-top risk is elevated.

What is Balanced Price?

Balanced Price is the Realised Price minus the Transferred Price, and it represents a deep fair-value floor. Because it strips the realised cost basis back by the cumulative value the network has spent through coin-day destruction, it sits well below the Realised Price and has historically aligned with the deepest bear-market lows. It is best read as the level toward which price gravitates during periods of maximum capitulation.

What is the Conviction Price?

The Conviction Price is an OCM-original model that reads the cost basis of the market's strongest hands directly from the unspent-supply distribution. It weights each price level's supply by how long it has sat unspent, crediting conviction continuously as supply matures rather than at a hard one-year cutoff, then takes the realised-capital-weighted median of that committed supply. Because patient capital rarely sells, the line behaves as a rising floor the strongest hands defend, and it re-bases upward each cycle as new buyers mature into long-term holders. A companion reading shows what share of all supply is committed, so you can tell a thick, well-defended floor from a thin one.

What is the Overhead Price?

The Overhead Price is an OCM-original model that points at the nearest heavy resistance above the market. It takes every coin held at a loss (cost basis above spot) and weights it by proximity to price, so a dense wall just overhead dominates while stale clusters far above barely register. The result is the cost basis of the trapped supply a rally must climb through. It lifts well above price through corrections and bear markets, where the overhang is real, and converges on spot at all-time highs, where by definition no overhead is left. A companion reading shows the share of supply held in loss, which tells you how thick that overhang is.

How should I read the Conviction Price and Overhead Price together?

They bracket the market. The Conviction Price is the floor held up by holders who will not sell, and the Overhead Price is the ceiling pressed down by holders waiting to break even and exit. When price sits comfortably between the two, the committed base supports it from below while the trapped overhang caps it from above. The companion magnitudes sharpen the read: a high committed share makes the floor more trustworthy, while a high supply-in-loss share makes the ceiling heavier. The most constructive setups appear when price holds above a thickly-backed Conviction Price while the supply-in-loss share above it is thin.

How does the Terminal vs Delta Top Oscillator work?

The oscillator measures how stretched the market is relative to its own cycle. It takes the spread between Delta Top and Terminal Price, the two cycle-top models, and converts it into a z-score so the reading is comparable across epochs. The upper panel shows spot price with Terminal Price and Delta Top overlaid in their own gradient colours, and the lower panel plots the smoothed z-score on a turquoise-to-white scale with dashed reference lines at +2 and -2. A sustained push above +2 signals statistically overheated conditions, while a drop below -2 signals undervaluation.

Why does the oscillator reset its z-score each halving cycle?

Bitcoin's valuation models scale by orders of magnitude between halving epochs, so a single global z-score would be dominated by the early, low-price cycles and would lose sensitivity as the network matures. Resetting the rolling window at each halving lets the oscillator judge every epoch on its own terms, keeping the overheated and undervalued thresholds meaningful in the current cycle.

Why is the STH vs LTH crossover significant?

It maps the transfer of wealth. When STH crosses above LTH, it means new money is aggressively bidding up prices past the level where veterans accumulated, which is a hallmark of bull markets. When STH crosses below LTH, it signals that recent buyers are capitulating at a loss, cementing a bear market.

How accurate is the 'Projected Cross' engine?

The engine uses EWLS regression on the logarithmic slopes of the two cost bases to forecast their intersection. While it mathematically calculates the precise trajectory, it is highly dynamic. A sudden, violent price crash will rapidly accelerate the projection timeline.

What are the STH Cost Bands and how should I use them?

The STH Cost Bands view renders the Short-Term Holder Realised Price as a central line and constructs five σ-multiple bands above and below it: +3σ (×1.8), +2σ (×1.5), +1σ (×1.25), -1σ (×0.8), and -2σ (×0.65). These bands map where recent buyers sit on a spectrum from extreme stress to extreme comfort. The lower-panel histogram shows consecutive days price has spent below cost basis, which measures the duration of recent-buyer pain. Three colour themes (Rainbow, Stealth, Forest) are available. Each band can also optionally display signal markers where price crosses its level.

What does the Forward Projection cone show?

The projection fits a log-linear trend to the trailing 180 days of a cost basis series using Ordinary Least Squares, then extrapolates it 90 days forward. The ±1σ and ±2σ uncertainty bands widen as the forecast horizon extends, reflecting the compounding uncertainty of any trend extrapolation. It is most useful for visualising where a cost basis is likely to be in the near term if its recent growth rate holds, rather than as a precise target.

What is Cointime Price and how does it differ from Realised Price?

Cointime Price is a cointime-weighted average that converts a BTC-denominated cointime metric into a USD price level using the spot price at each date. Unlike the standard Realised Price, which weights each coin by its last-moved price, Cointime Price weights coins by the amount of time they have been held, giving dormant long-term supply a heavier influence. It tends to sit below the Realised Price and acts as a very deep structural floor.

Where does the dashboard get its circulating supply?

Every capitalisation-based model (Terminal Price, Balanced Price, Delta Top and the cap conversions) is computed against live circulating supply pulled directly from the on-chain data feed. If that feed is briefly unavailable, the dashboard falls back to a deterministic supply figure derived from the halving block-subsidy schedule, so the models remain accurate and the suite never breaks.

What does the Cost Basis Heatmap reveal about the market?

The heatmap visualises the density of coin supply distributed across historical price levels. Bright, dense clusters highlight structural macro support or resistance zones where massive amounts of Bitcoin changed hands, forming strong psychological and mathematical price floors.

How should I interpret spot price moving into a dense heatmap cluster?

When the spot price approaches a high-density cluster from above, that cluster often acts as heavy support, as investors defend their breakeven points. Conversely, approaching a cluster from below suggests strong resistance, as underwater holders look to exit at their original acquisition price.