Bitcoin Loss Supply Grows, Pushing Stress Gauge Back Above Key Threshold

Bitcoin is holding in the $63,000 range, but a growing share of coins is now being held at a loss, pushing market stress back to elevated levels, analyst Axel Adler Jr. wrote.

In an Aug. 4 newsletter, Adler said Bitcoin’s profit-and-loss stress index rose to 71.58, moving above the 70 threshold.

The index measures the share of Bitcoin holdings in profit versus those at a loss at the current price. A reading above 70 indicates a large portion of supply is underwater and market pressure is high. A reading above 90 signals an extreme concentration of loss-making holdings.

A year ago, when Bitcoin was trading at $114,000, the index stood at a neutral 41. It later surged to 100 in November 2025 after the price briefly fell to around $58,000. The gauge has since moved away from that extreme, but has now re-entered the lower end of the high-pressure zone.

Weekly momentum, which tracks changes in the index over the past seven days, also turned positive by 3 points. Market stress had gradually eased over the past month, but pressure has started to build again as the index moved back above 70 in late July.

“The market remains in a high-stress zone, but it has not entered an extreme phase,” Adler wrote. Pressure can be seen as easing only if the index falls below 70 and momentum turns negative.

He added that conditions could deteriorate quickly if Bitcoin falls below $61,500, its lowest level of the past month, and the stress index rises above 90.