MVRV Ratio

MVRV = Market Cap ÷ Realized Cap. Realized Cap — introduced in 2018 by Nic Carter and Antoine Le Calvez of Coin Metrics — values each coin at the price of its last on-chain move and sums the result, approximating the aggregate cost basis of all holders. MVRV therefore reads as "how many multiples of average cost basis is the market currently paying" — the market-wide average unrealized-profit multiple.

In their original October 2018 article, Murad Mahmudov and David Puell identified two empirical levels: above 3.7, average paper profit nears 3x and history says cycle-top territory; below 1, price trades under the network's average cost basis — most holders are underwater — a rare deep-bottom signal that appeared briefly in 2015, late 2018 and mid 2022.

The logic: larger paper profits mean stronger incentive to take profit and rising sell pressure; widespread paper losses mean capitulation exhausts itself. The failure mode follows from the same logic — the thresholds were fitted to past cycles, and as the market grows and institutionalizes, MVRV's cycle peaks have declined each round (the 2021 top never reached 3.7). Treat the levels as drifting, not fixed. Lost coins priced at ancient values also permanently understate the denominator.

MVRV is the parent of a metric family: normalize by standard deviation and you get the MVRV Z-Score; split supply by holding age and you get LTH-MVRV and STH-MVRV; take (Market Cap − Realized Cap) ÷ Market Cap and you get NUPL. All share the same price-versus-cost-basis engine — confluence across them carries more weight than any single reading.

Beyond cycle positioning, gauge short-term sentiment with market-wide liquidations and BTC liquidation data.