Active Realised Price reports what the tradeable float paid for itself, discounting coins that have gone quiet. The figure it produces is frequently a long way from the one you get by counting the whole supply, because most of the supply is not for sale.

An ordinary realised measure values each coin at whatever it last changed hands for, whenever that was. This one tilts towards coins that keep changing hands, so what it describes is the entry price of the float rather than of the entire supply.

What it actually measures

Stripping out dormant coin isolates the basis of supply that can actually move. That places this level above Realised Price and makes it react faster to live demand, because the coins it describes are the ones doing the trading.

Above it, the coins that genuinely change hands are collectively in the black, which reads market health better than a figure covering every coin ever mined. Below it, the trading part of the market is losing money while the oldest holdings sit undisturbed.

That concentration is the useful part. When stress sits entirely with recent participants and the dormant base is unaffected, the supply capable of reacting is a much smaller share of the market than a supply-wide reading would suggest.

The market-wide cost basis includes coins nobody living has traded

A supply-wide average takes in coins that last moved a decade or more ago at prices no current participant would recognise. Those coins are real, and they are also completely inert. They pull the aggregate towards a number that describes nobody in the market today.

That is not a flaw in the aggregate, it is a different question. If you want to know whether the market is underwater, the market is the supply that trades. This level answers that question and the supply-wide one does not.

What it does not tell you

Where the line falls between active and dormant is a judgement. Move it and the level moves, so this is a considered estimate of the tradeable cost basis rather than an observation of one.

It also reacts faster, which cuts both ways. A level that responds to live demand will chop around more than a slow aggregate, and some of that movement is the definition breathing rather than the market changing.

It is also an average, so it says nothing about how the active supply is distributed around it. A market where most circulating coin sits near this level behaves very differently from one where it is split between two distant clusters.

How to read it

Far above Active Realised Price. The tradeable market holds a wide aggregate gain.

Above Active Realised Price. The coins that genuinely change hands are collectively in the black, which is the more informative half of the supply.

Near Active Realised Price. The circulating market is close to collectively breaking even.

Below Active Realised Price. The trading part of the market is losing money while the oldest holdings sit undisturbed, so the pain sits with newer arrivals.

The Cost Bases dashboard puts Active Realised Price next to Realised Price, True Market Mean and Vaulted Price.

Common questions

What does it change against Realised Price?

The ordinary measure values each coin at whatever it last changed hands for, whenever that was. This one tilts towards coins that keep moving, so it describes the float.

Why does it sit above Realised Price?

Because the dormant coins it leans away from last moved at much lower prices, and removing their weight lifts the level.

Why does it react faster?

Because the supply it describes is the supply that trades, so live demand shows up in it sooner than in a supply-wide aggregate.

Which of the two should I use?

They answer different questions. Use the supply-wide figure for the whole network and this one for whether the tradeable market is underwater.

Is the active and dormant split exact?

No. It is a judgement about behaviour, and moving the boundary moves the level.