8M BTC Underwater, ETH Profit Pool Shrinks to 2017 Levels: Capitulation Hits the Charts 🌊

Roughly 8 million BTC are currently held at a loss, with on-chain analytics firm Glassnode describing the figure as "highlighting the scale of the recent market reset." At the prior cycle peak, nearly half of Bitcoin's circulating supply was in profit; that share has since dropped sharply, according to data published Tuesday. Bitcoin is down roughly 31% year-to-date, per CoinGecko figures cited in the report.

Ethereum ($ETH) has fared worse, sliding about 46% in 2026. Glassnode noted that the share of ETH supply sitting at more than 3x profit has fallen to 11%, the lowest reading since February 2017. In the previous two cycles, that cohort exceeded 50% of total supply at peak. "This time, that threshold was never reached. Ethereum's profitability profile has fundamentally compressed relative to prior cycles," the firm wrote.

Capitulation signals are also flashing on the XRP ($XRP) network, which is down 41% year-to-date. The 90-day simple moving average of XRP's Realized Profit to Loss Ratio has dropped to 0.38, meaning only 38 cents of profit is being realized for every dollar of loss. At the 2025 peak, that ratio reached 50, according to Glassnode. "A ratio this deep below 1 reflects a market where the majority of participants who are moving coins are doing so at a loss, a hallmark of intense capitulation," the firm said. The 90D-SMA of total fees paid on the XRP network has fallen 91.5%, from 5,900 XRP in February 2025 to roughly 500 XRP today, indicating a "near-total contraction in organic transaction demand on the network since the speculative peak."

Most altcoins remain down between 50% and 80% from their all-time highs, though a handful of names including Hyperliquid, Zcash, and Canton have continued to outperform. "We're seeing a meaningful portion of the market sitting on unrealized losses, which historically has coincided with lower sentiment and greater caution," Bitget CEO Gracy Chen told Decrypt, adding that such periods allow long-term participants to reassess conviction and positioning. Matthew Pinnock, COO at Altura DeFi, told Decrypt that the downturn is "accelerating a shift from narrative-driven tokens toward cash-flow-generating protocols," pointing to Hyperliquid's rise as evidence of that rotation.