BTC rebounded to $103,000, but 30% of coin holders are still at a loss—are bottom signals emerging?

On Wednesday, the US stock market opened, and Bitcoin experienced a slight rebound, rising back above $103,000, with a daily increase of 1.5%. This wave of recovery provided some relief to long positions, but in the context of the severe backdrop of the past 24 hours, this increase can only be considered a minor adjustment.

Leverage liquidation triggers a massacre

How severe was yesterday's drop? Just look at the on-chain data to find out. Coinglass's monitoring shows that in the past 24 hours alone, the liquidation amount for long positions exceeded $1.7 billion—this is the largest deleveraging event of the year. BTC fell over 20% from its peak, hitting a new low not seen in 100 days, directly piercing through the key support of the 365-day moving average.

Is it the bottom or will it continue to fall? On-chain data provides clues.

Interestingly, despite the market still recovering, some key indicators are signaling a bottom.

Skew traders immediately observed aggressive long positions being opened again after the liquidation, which usually indicates that large funds are bottom fishing. More importantly, the order book depth indicator of the spot exchange has turned positive—this indicator measures the balance of buying and selling power, and it is now finally leaning towards the buyers. Although this is a lagging indicator, it means that spot buyers are starting to absorb the selling pressure.

On-chain data is more critical: 30% of the BTC supply is in a state of loss. This ratio sounds a bit alarming, but history tells us that such high unrealized losses usually signal a local bottom, rather than a continued decline—it's a time when sellers are exhausted.

The next move of the large holders may be at these four prices

The liquidation chart shows that long positions have been mostly cleared, with only a scattered distribution remaining in the range of 97,000 to 99,000. The focus now shifts to the concentration area of the sell-side stop-loss orders.

BitBull analyzed the liquidity heat map of the exchange and found four major trading hotspots above: 102,500, 111,500, 116,000, and 117,500. Large holders will not miss this liquidity trap and are likely to harvest these stop-loss orders all the way up - this is known as “wick fishing”.

Galaxy Digital pessimistic about the 2025 target

However, the naysayers have also arrived. Galaxy Digital has cut its target price for Bitcoin in 2025 from 185,000 to 120,000, citing reasons including:

• In October, the big whales threw out a shock wave of 400,000 BTC.
• Capital flows into narratives such as gold, AI, and stablecoins.
• The recent wave of liquidations has hurt market sentiment.

Alex Thorn, the chief researcher at Galaxy, said that Bitcoin has entered its “mature phase”—institutional adoption, passive ETF inflows, and decreased volatility have become the main themes. This implies that the era of making a fortune through speculation may be over, and future price increases will be more moderate.

But Thorn also added an important statement: as long as BTC holds above 100,000 USD, the structure of this three-year rise will not be broken.

Does a 20% drop count as a bear market?

BTC has fallen from its historical high of 126,000 to the present, a decline of exactly 21%. This has sparked discussions on “whether we have entered a bear market.” Some say a 20% drop defines a bear market, but veteran trader Lourenço VS pointed out that a normal correction in this cycle has actually been 20-25%, sometimes even 30%. “The current 21% correction is completely within the normal range,” he said.

The real turning point may have been the $1 billion “flash crash” on October 10, which was when the $20 billion super liquidation really hurt the rise momentum.

Summary: Technically, there are bottom signals, and on-chain data shows that holders are unlikely to cut losses. Large investors are positioning for a rebound. However, whether it can stabilize at 100,000 and whether it can rebound to 120,000 will depend on the performance in the next week or two.