The Bitcoin market continues to experience high levels of investor uncertainty, as indicated by the unstable price action of the past week. In the last month alone, the leading cryptocurrency has lost about 14% of its value, strengthening fears of an impending bear market. Notably, renowned market expert Ali Martinez has shared some insight on this speculation, highlighting a key technical development that historically precedes an extended downtrend.

Bitcoin Winter Phase To Start Only When Price Loses 730-Day SMA – Analyst 

In an X post on Friday, Martinez presents an on-chain analysis that identifies a key price zone for determining Bitcoin’s price trajectory amid current market volatility. Using data from the Bitcoin Investor Tool metric from Glassnode, the analyst has discovered that extended downtrends in Bitcoin often start once the price falls below its 730-day Simple Moving Average (SMA), a level currently sitting at $82,150. For context, the chart below shows that the 730-day SMA (green), an important long-term indicator, has historically acted as a structural support level during major market cycles. When Bitcoin decisively loses this line, momentum tends to shift, leading to deeper corrections and lengthier bearish periods as seen between 2015-2016, 2019, and 2022-2023.

However, the chart also presents some bullish insights. Larger cyclical metrics, including the 730-day SMA × 5 band (pink) sitting at $410,771, remain well above the current price, indicating that macro overvaluation is not yet a concern, as the leading cryptocurrency remains far from an overheated zone. According to Ali Martinez, as long as Bitcoin holds above $82,150, the potential for any prolonged downtrend synonymous with a bear market remains minimal, ensuring the bull structure remains intact.

Bitcoin Weekly Net Outflows Hit $800M As Accumulation Rises

In other developments, on-chain analytics firm Sentora reports that the Bitcoin market recorded an $805 million increase in weekly exchange net outflows, indicating that a significant portion of market investors are unfazed by the recent price correction. Instead, they are opting to transfer more of their investment off crypto exchanges, suggesting an intention to hold in anticipation of future price appreciation. Meanwhile, total Bitcoin network fees reached $1.96 million, representing a 7.69% gain from the previous week and indicating an increase in transactions and network activity during this period. At the time of writing, Bitcoin trades at $89,693 following a 2.71% price decline in the last 24 hours.

On-chain analytics firm Glassnode has pointed out how the current Bitcoin market is reminiscent to the structure from the first quarter of 2022.

Bitcoin Dynamics Are Currently Looking Similar To Early 2022 Bear Market

In its latest weekly report, Glassnode has discussed about how the broader Bitcoin market structure is starting to resemble Q1 2022. First, the analytics firm has shared the data of its Supply Quantiles Cost Basis Model, highlighting price levels that correspond to a certain degree of investor profitability.

In the chart, three supply quantiles are listed: 0.75, 0.85, and 0.95. If Bitcoin trades at the first of these levels, 75% of the supply will be in profit. Similarly, the latter two correspond to 85% and 95% profitability, respectively.

It’s visible in the graph that Bitcoin has recently fallen below all three of these levels, indicating more than 25% of the cryptocurrency’s supply is now underwater. “This creates a fragile balance between the risk of top-buyer capitulation and the potential for seller exhaustion to form a bottom,” explained Glassnode.

BTC similarly broke below the 0.75 quantile back during the sideways market of early 2022. Another indicator that reinforces the resemblance is the Total Supply in Loss, which measures, as its name suggests, the amount of the Bitcoin circulating supply that’s being held at some net unrealized loss.

Below is a chart showing the 7-day moving average (MA) trend in the metric.

As displayed in the graph, the 7-day MA Bitcoin Total Supply in Loss hit a high of 7.1 million BTC last week, which is the highest that it has been since September 2023, more than two years ago.

The analytics firm noted:

The current scale of supply in loss, ranging between 5M–7M BTC, is strikingly similar to the early-2022 sideways market, further reinforcing the resemblance noted above.

Finally, the Bitcoin long-term holder Spent Output Profit Ratio (SOPR) also implies that the current market structure is mirroring Q1 2022. This metric tells us, in short, whether the Bitcoin investors holding since more than 155 days ago are selling their coins at a profit or loss.

The Bitcoin long-term holder SOPR has witnessed a sharp decline recently, but its value is still above 1, indicating the long-term holders are selling at some net profit. With its current value of 1.43, however, there has been a notable shrinkage in the profit margins of the cohort.

It now remains to be seen whether the trends in these indicators mean that the cryptocurrency is on the cusp of a bear market transition like in early 2022, or if a rebound will come before long.

BTC Price

Bitcoin has seen a slight pullback during the past day as its price has dropped to $91,800.

XRP may be holding above the $2 price mark for a brief period, but the leading altcoin is still facing heightened bearish pressures at that level due to a broader market pullback on Monday. Even with the ongoing downward trend in price, XRP is still experiencing robust engagement as evidenced by the massive surge in activity on the XRP Ledger.

An Explosive uptick In XRP Ledger’s Activity

Prices are constantly dwindling along with the entire crypto market, but the XRP Ledger is seeing sharp engagement within the bearish period. After months of quiet and reduced adoption, the Ledger has roared back to life, recording one of its strongest growth waves yet.

Arthur, a community member and official partner of the BingX cryptocurrency exchange, shared this surge in activity on the social media platform X. This isn’t a mild rise; it’s a growth wave with significant weight behind it, the kind that indicates an expanding utility rather than fleeting speculation.

Furthermore, the sharp growth in activity suggests that more investors are choosing to conduct their day-to-day XRP operations on the Ledger, reflecting a renewed conviction in the network. The Ledger’s current activity spike is centered around the rise in Account Set transactions to a point not seen in years.

After navigating through XRPL metrics, the expert revealed that more than 40,000 Account Set transactions were carried out on the Ledger, marking its highest level in years. Such a massive wave of transactions to a new peak suggests that the Ledger may be speeding into its next phase in a market where many chains find it difficult to sustain momentum.

At the same time, there was also a surge in Automated Market Maker (AMM) bids just after November 23 concluded, indicating that preparations are taking place on the network. With Ripple’s stablecoin RLUSD approvals, AMM rollout, and the onboarding of institutional investors at an accelerated rate, it simply implies that the Ledger is picking up pace. 

Open Interest Suffers A Steep Decline

While the price of XRP has pulled back, the decline appears to be heavily impacting investors’ sentiment toward the altcoin. Its derivatives market has significantly lost its weight in a single and steep decline as Open Interest (OI) experiences a sharp drop.

In a report from Glassnode, a leading on-chain data analytics platform, the token’s futures open interest fell from 1.7 billion XRP in early October to 0.7 billion XRP by the end of November. This figure represents a more than 59% flush out from October to November alone.

The funding rates have also followed suit, recording a drop from 0.001% to 0.001% in the 7-day Simple Moving Average (SMA). A combination of the drop in open interest and funding rates marks a structural pause in the altcoin’s speculators’ appetite to bet heavily on an upward direction. At the time of writing, the altcoin was trading at $2.02 after falling by over 1% in the last 24 hours.

XRP’s derivatives market has undergone a marked regime shift, with leverage collapsing and funding normalising in a way that signals a clear retreat from aggressive speculative positioning. The strongest evidence comes from Glassnode’s latest post on November 30, which frames the current phase as a structural, not merely tactical, pause in XRP leverage.

XRP Derivatives Unwind Accelerates

“XRP’s futures OI has fallen from 1.7B XRP in early October to 0.7B XRP (~59% flush-out). Paired with the funding rate dropping from ~0.01% to 0.001% (7D-SMA), 10/10 marked a structural pause in XRP speculators’ appetite to bet aggressively on upside,” Glassnode’s CryptoVizArt wrote on X.

Open interest at 1.7 billion XRP in early October reflected a heavily leveraged market, with large notional positions stacked in futures and perpetuals. The subsequent collapse to 0.7 billion XRP implies that around one billion XRP of derivatives exposure has been closed, liquidated, or otherwise unwound. Such a reduction is not just a marginal trimming of risk; it is a wholesale deleveraging that strips out a large part of the speculative layer sitting on top of the spot market.

The funding-rate move is equally telling. A 7-day SMA around 0.01% had previously indicated a consistent long bias, with traders willing to pay a recurring fee to maintain leveraged upside exposure. The compression to roughly 0.001% pushes funding close to neutral. In perpetual futures, that transition typically occurs when demand for leveraged longs fades and the market no longer tolerates a meaningful premium to hold long positions.

Glassnode’s description of October 10 crash as the point that “marked a structural pause” captures this shift in regime: the market moved from persistent long crowding to a far more cautious, balanced stance. The November 30 post sits on top of a broader context Glassnode has been documenting through November.

In November 8, the firm highlighted how profit taking has behaved during the recent drawdown: “Unlike previous profit realization waves that aligned with rallies, since late September, as XRP fell from $3.09 (~25%) to $2.30, profit realization volume (7D-SMA) surged by ~240%, from $65M/day to $220M/day. This divergence underscores distribution into weakness, not strength.” Rather than de-risking into strength, profitable holders have been realizing gains as price fell, reinforcing the deleveraging signalled by futures data.

On November 17, Glassnode turned to supply dynamics, noting that “the share of XRP supply in profit has fallen to 58.5%, the lowest since Nov 2024, when price was $0.53. Today, despite trading ~4× higher ($2.15), 41.5% of supply (~26.5B XRP) sits in loss — a clear sign of a top-heavy and structurally fragile market dominated by late buyers.” Those on-chain figures provide the background to the 30 November derivatives snapshot: a market whose ownership is skewed toward late entrants now sits on substantial unrealized losses, while the leverage that previously amplified upside has been largely flushed.

Taken together, Glassnode’s data on futures open interest and funding rates crystallise the current state of XRP: a violent 59% leverage reset, a near-neutral funding regime, and a speculative cohort that has stepped back from paying for upside, all layered on top of a top-heavy holder base.

At press time, XRP traded at $2.04.