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Short-term Bitcoin traders were profitable for 66% of 2025: Will profits rise in 2026?
Short-term Bitcoin traders were profitable for 229 days this year despite the recent 30% correction in BTC price. Will this trend carry over into 2026?
Bitcoin’s
BTC
$90,158
short-term holders (STHs) have spent 229 out of 345 days in profit, an outcome that appears contradictory given that BTC is at a negative year-to-date (YTD) return and struggles to trade above $100,000.

However, beneath the weak headline performance, the structure of onchain positioning tells a different story.

Key takeaways:

Bitcoin short-term holders logged profits for 66% of 2025, even while BTC traded below its yearly open.

The STH realized price at $81,000 acted as a sentiment pivot, which divided phases of panic and recovery.

Unrealized losses narrowed to -12% from -28%, signaling fading capitulation.

Bitcoin trades near its realized price
The volatility of 2025 can be explained through the lens of the one– to three-month STH cohort. As illustrated in the chart, Bitcoin’s price repeatedly interacted with its realized price, producing alternating waves of green net-unrealized profit/loss (NUPL) profitability and red NUPL losses.
Early in 2025, BTC stayed above this cost basis for nearly two months, giving STHs their first pocket of sustained profits. But the shift into February and March saw prices fall below the cohort’s realized price, dragging STH NUPL into deep red and marking one of the year’s longest loss stretches.

However, momentum reversed sharply from late April through mid-October, where the chart’s broad green zones align with Bitcoin’s 172-day period of predominantly profitable STH activity. Even though the broader trend was softening, these recoveries pushed STH profitability far higher than the market narrative implied.

Only in late October did the market slip back beneath the realized price again, triggering the ongoing 45-day period of STH losses that coincides with the swelling red NUPL region.$BTC ‌