NUPL (Net Unrealized Profit/Loss)

NUPL (Net Unrealized Profit/Loss) originates from the 2019 Adamant Capital report "A Primer on Bitcoin Investor Sentiment and Changes in Saving Behaviour" by Tuur Demeester, Tamás Blummer and Michiel Lescrauwaet, who called it Relative Unrealized Profit/Loss. The formula: (Market Cap − Realized Cap) ÷ Market Cap — the network's net paper profit as a share of market cap. Mathematically it is a re-expression of MVRV (NUPL = 1 − 1/MVRV), but bounded between −1 and 1, which suits sentiment banding.

The conventional bands (Glassnode's implementation of the Adamant framework): below 0, Capitulation — the network is net underwater; 0–0.25 Hope/Fear; 0.25–0.5 Optimism/Anxiety; 0.5–0.75 Belief/Denial; above 0.75, Euphoria/Greed. The 2013, 2017 and 2021 tops all reached or approached the Euphoria band, while the negative-territory episodes — 2015, late 2018, March 2020, late 2022 — were each validated in hindsight as cycle-scale bottom zones.

When NUPL is high, most supply sits on deep unrealized gains — everyone's account is green, and the temptation to sell compounds as the reading climbs. When NUPL turns negative, the market's aggregate cost basis exceeds spot price, and the pool of marginal sellers willing to realize losses keeps shrinking. It doesn't time reversals; it gauges the potential energy of sell pressure.

It inherits Realized Cap's flaws: lost coins valued at ancient prices overstate true paper profit, and exchange or custody reshuffles distort cost-basis accounting. The zone thresholds are empirical, not laws — like MVRV, peak readings have drifted lower each cycle as the market matures. Good for confirming cycle position; unsuitable as a short-term timing tool.

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