According to historical data, the price of Bitcoin has never posted three consecutive months of positive performance in a bear-market year. This trend is about to continue in 2026, with May looking likely to end in the red for BTC after optimistic performances in March and April, and at the start of this month. Recent on-chain data suggests that short-term investors may also be capitulating amid Bitcoin’s disappointing price action over the past few weeks.
Are BTC’s Short-Term Investors Losing Conviction?
In a Quicktake post on the CryptoQuant platform, market analyst RugaResearch revealed that a specific cohort of Bitcoin investors moved a significant amount of BTC in the past day. This set of investors is known as the short-term holders, who are famous (or infamous) for being the most reactive in the market.
Specifically, RugaResearch reported that 107,760 BTC within the 1-month to 3-month Spent Output Age Band moved in a single day, the largest value on-chain movement (within this age band) in more than seven months. For context, the Spent Output Age Bands is an on-chain indicator that segments spent transaction outputs into age brackets, showing the proportion of total coins moved and how long they were inactive.
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The 1- to 3-month Spent Output Age Band tracks Bitcoin purchased between late February and late April (from the beginning of BTC’s recovery to around $80,000 last month). RugaResearch said that when this age band witnesses an aggressive move, like the one recently seen, it means that the most recent investors are reacting rather than accumulating.
The crypto pundit spotlighted that the movement of these 107,760 BTC while the Bitcoin price is sub-$74,000 means that a significant portion of the 1-month to 3-month Spent Output Age Band is out of the money — or near breakeven, at best. While it remains to be seen why this move occurred, this shake-up does not suggest conviction among the most reactive set of investors.
RugaResearch wrote:
Exchange inflows tell you if these coins are heading to sell. If they land on exchanges, this flush has legs. If they’re moving to cold storage or OTC desks, it’s redistribution under pressure.
Hence, centralized exchanges’ data is one of the signals to watch in the coming days to decipher the purpose of this move.
Bitcoin Price Momentum Stays Negative For Eight Days
At the same time, RugaResearch revealed a worrying trend with the Bitcoin Price Momentum indicator, which has stayed negative since May 22nd. After rising to a nearly one-year high of +20.5% on May 5th, the on-chain metric dropped by 12.9 percentage points about ten days later.
After flipping to negative a little over a week ago, the Bitcoin Price Momentum currently sits at 4.07%. “When 1m-3m spent output spikes 6.7x overnight while momentum bleeds for 8 straight days, the positioning game shifts,” the market analyst concluded.
As of this writing, the price of BTC stands at around $73,410, reflecting a mere 0.4% dip in the past 24 hours.
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Featured image from iStock, chart from TradingView
