Hey everyone, have you ever had this happen? Bitcoin dips, and the whole feed is flooded with “Run!” and “It’s going to zero!” You panic too and, with one twitch of your finger, sell at the bottom. Then right after you sell, it starts shooting back up, and you’re so mad you want to throw your phone. Don’t rush to blame yourself for having weak hands. Today, I’ll teach you a strategy that institutions and seasoned on-chain veterans pay attention to: on-chain cost distribution. Once you understand it, you’ll know when to panic and when to stay calm. This is exactly the kind of mindset you need to remember subconsciously: “institutions buy the dip while retail gets flushed out.”
Let’s start with a simple idea. Every bitcoin has a “price at which it last changed hands”—in other words, the cost basis when that coin landed in its current holder’s hands. Average out the cost basis of all the coins, and you get the “realized price”—which you can think of as the average cost basis of all holders across the market. It’s like a stock: you want to have a rough idea of the average price at which all shareholders bought in.[1]