True Market Mean estimates fair value from money that is genuinely still in play, leaving aside coins that have long since stopped participating. Trading above the line means the market carries a premium at the cycle scale, and the stretches spent below it are the ones that later look like buying opportunities.

It weighs only the supply that is economically awake, which is what makes it such a steady centre of gravity. Long excursions to either side have tended to come back towards it.

What it actually measures

Dormant coin distorts any market-wide average. A supply-wide cost basis includes coins nobody living has traded, which drags the figure to a level no current participant paid. This estimate leans on the capital that is actually in the game.

The result is a reference for what the engaged market has committed. Price trading well above it describes a premium being paid over that commitment, and the size of the premium is what carries information rather than its existence.

That gives it a different job from the rest of the dashboard. The floors say where the market has stopped falling and the top models say where it has stopped rising. This one says where it has kept coming back to.

It is an anchor to revert towards, not a floor to bounce off

Most levels on this dashboard are floors. They are lines you hope hold, and their value is that price stops there. This one is different in kind: price is expected to pass through it, from both directions, repeatedly.

Reading it like a floor is the common mistake. A break beneath is not a failure of support, it is the market arriving at the other half of its range, and the historical record is that stretched moves in either direction have come back towards this level rather than away from it.

What it does not tell you

Mean reversion is a tendency, not a schedule. Price has spent long stretches far from this level in both directions, and knowing that a market is stretched says nothing about when it stops being stretched.

There is also a definition of active capital built into it. Change that definition and the level moves, so it is a considered estimate of fair value rather than a measurement of one.

How to read it

Far above True Market Mean. A wide macro premium to the fair value of active capital.

Above True Market Mean. The awake part of the market is in the black, and the premium widens the further price runs.

Near True Market Mean. Price sits at the anchor it has historically reverted towards from both directions.

Below True Market Mean. Price is under the fair value of active capital, the band that has marked durable bottoms.

Open the Cost Bases dashboard and True Market Mean sits there with Active Realised Price, Vaulted Price and Realised Price.

Common questions

What makes it a fair-value estimate?

It weighs the capital actually engaged in the market rather than every coin that has ever existed, so it describes what live participants have committed.

Why is it not a floor?

Because price is expected to trade through it from both directions. Its role is an anchor that stretched moves revert towards, not a level that stops them.

Does a break beneath mean something is wrong?

No. It means the market has arrived at the other half of its range, and that side has historically been the accumulation one.

Does it say when reversion happens?

No. Mean reversion says where price has tended to go, never when, and stretched conditions have persisted for a long time.

How does it relate to Active Realised Price?

Both lean on the supply that genuinely circulates. This one is the fair-value reading and that one is the cost basis of what trades.