Bitcoin's underwater cohort just hit a record — and the relief trade is already crowded

Close to eleven million bitcoin are now held at a loss — a record — while the spot price drifted under $60,000 in the 24 hours through 25 June 2026, hours before a quarterly options settlement worth roughly $10 billion. Long-term holders, by contrast, have never controlled more of the supply: 14.8 million coins, also a record. The two figures sit on top of each other and tell different stories.

The standard read is that weak hands have already sold and the strong hands are still buying. The less comfortable read is that the strong hands are buying because the alternative is to mark a loss against a balance sheet, and that a market in which 10.83 million BTC trade below cost has very little interest in letting prices fall further. Either way, the trade that almost every desk is recommending right now is the same one: buy the dip, target a relief bounce.

What the tape actually shows

Bitcoin fell below $60,000 on 24 June 2026, the first sub-$60K print in weeks, according to Cointelegraph's market coverage. The move put the asset well under the $72,000 "max pain" level that options traders had marked as the gravity well for Friday's settlement. In a functioning max-pain regime, the price would have been pulled toward that strike into expiry; in this cycle it has not. The popular theory simply isn't working out this quarter.

Beneath the price action, the on-chain picture is harsher. Per CoinDesk's 25 June analysis, 10.83 million BTC are now held at an unrealised loss — the largest such cohort on record. Long-term holders, defined by CoinDesk as addresses that have not moved their coins for 155 days or more, control a record 14.8 million BTC. The composition matters: the coins changing hands are, increasingly, the recent buyers. The coins not moving are, increasingly, the patient ones.

The relief trade is the most crowded idea on the board

Cointelegraph reported on 24 June that derivatives traders are positioning for a roughly 15% bounce from the sub-$60K low. Funding rates on perpetual futures, options skew and put-call ratios all pointed the same direction: downside hedges priced for a scenario that did not arrive, upside calls bid for the snap-back that almost everyone expected once $60K broke. The asymmetry of that positioning is itself a risk. A crowded long carries the same danger as a crowded short — that the exit, when it comes, is the move.

The options expiry amplifies the dynamic. Roughly $10 billion of notional options settle on Friday, and max pain sits at $72,000. In a textbook quarter, market makers hedge into expiry in a way that pulls spot toward the strike that hurts the most counterparties. So far this expiry, the textbook has not applied. The settlement will still happen; the question is whether the volatility moves before or after.

What the long-term-holder record actually means

A growing LTH cohort is usually read as bullish — patient capital, conviction buyers, supply locked away. The reading is more complicated this cycle. LTH balances can rise for two reasons: accumulation by existing holders, or simply the passage of time. Coins bought eighteen months ago become "long-term held" by clock, regardless of whether the holder is patient or trapped. The 14.8 million figure does not by itself distinguish between conviction and inertia.

The same caveat applies on the other side. 10.83 million BTC held at a loss is a striking number, but it is also a stock measure, not a flow. It tells us how many coins are underwater; it does not tell us how many of those holders are forced sellers, willing sellers, or simply unwilling to look at the screen. In previous cycles, underwater cohorts of this size have resolved in both directions — through months of sideways grinding back to cost, and through sharp capitulation events that flushed the remaining weak hands.

Stakes

If the relief trade works, the bounce takes the tape back toward $70,000, the $10 billion expiry settles near max pain, and the long-term-holder cohort becomes the headline for the next leg up. If it does not, 10.83 million underwater coins is the kind of supply overhang that turns a dip into a trend. The asymmetry between a 15% bounce and the cost basis of nearly half the circulating supply is the trade. The fact that almost everyone can see it is the risk.

The data this week does not adjudicate between the two. It does say that the cohort in loss is larger than it has ever been, the patient cohort is larger than it has ever been, and the options market is priced for a bounce that the spot market has not yet delivered. Each of those three records can be read as bullish. Read together, they describe a market in which the consensus trade and the consensus narrative are unusually aligned — and in which the next data point will move a lot of positioning at once.

Desk note: Monexus framed this as a positioning story rather than a price-prediction story. The wire coverage leaned on the bounce narrative; the on-chain figures deserved equal weight.