Bitcoin [BTC] continued its streak of bearish days on Tuesday, February 24. It fell 4.58% in the last 24 hours and the Crypto Fear and Greed Index fell to 5. This was an extremely low reading, last seen in 2019.
Ethereum [ETH] also posted losses, spurred by the sale of co-founder Buterin. The synchronized selling of the top two crypto assets highlighted the risk-off sentiment, traders reduced their exposure and investors exited the market.
More Bitcoin is sold at a loss than at a profit
Source: Glass button on X
In one recent post on XBlockchain intelligence platform Glassnode pointed out that the 90-day realized profit-loss ratio was less than 1. This meant that the average holder sold Bitcoin at a loss over the past three months.
This represented a “complete transition to a regime of excessive loss realization,” it said. The extreme fear values and related sell-off indicated the same thing. Any greed in the market has been wiped out.
But that’s not all. These types of extreme phases with a value below 1 usually last six months. Once the realized profit/loss ratio climbs back above 1 and stays there, investors can consider this an onchain ‘buy signal’.
The Bitcoin Net Unrealized Profit/Loss has been declining since October 2025. The metric represents the total amount of profit/loss across all coins, represented as a ratio. The lower it falls, the less pressure on Bitcoin from profit-taking.
By itself, it does not provide a buy signal for Bitcoin unless the ratio falls below 0. In this situation, the market capitalization is smaller than the realized capitalization – another sign that investors suffered losses on average.
The further the market capitalization deviates from the realized capitalization, the more motivation there would be for value buyers to enter the market.
Investors can watch the benchmark for parallels to the previous cycle before attempting to buy Bitcoin at the bottom. As things stand, further bearish price action is likely to occur over the next six months.
Final summary
- The realized profit-loss ratio showed that Bitcoin holders realized more losses than gains over the past three months, a sign of a transition to a market extreme.
- Six more months of such bearishness are likely to persist, and NUPL values below 0 will inform investors of a deep discount to BTC.