The combination of several factors, including Bitcoin’s fall below the 200-day moving average, spot prices trading below the realized price, and the Mayer Multiple value being lower than 0.5, contributed to the severity of this year’s bear trend.
The 200-day MA is one of the most common technical analysis metrics, and the drop below its value is a nearly unequivocal indicator of a bear market. This time, Bitcoin has fallen below half the 200DMA level, which suggests that current prices are extremely rare.
Another significant indicator is a Mayer Multiple, a metric derived from 200DMA that records price deviations above and below it to showcase overbought or oversold conditions, respectively. The MM below 0.5 is really uncommon, as only 84 out of 4160 trading days (2%) have recorded such value. “For the first time in history, the 2021-22 cycle has recorded a lower MM value (0.487) than the previous cycle’s low (0.511),” Glassnode noted.
The spot price falling below the realized price is another sign of unfavorable market conditions. The current trading below realized price is only the third time in six years, with previous events being the March 2020 COVID crash and the Nov 2018 capitulation, both indicating the bottom for that bear market. An average market participant is now underwater on their holdings as spot prices are trading at an 11.3% discount to the realized price, Glassnode added.
“Given the extensive duration and size of the prevailing bear market, 2022 can be reasonably argued to be the most significant bear market in the history of digital assets,” Glassnode concludes.
