Bitcoin traded at $82,939 on Wednesday, down nearly 4% over seven days, after touching an eight-month high of $87,251 last week. The pullback came as holders realized 25.7K BTC in profit in a single day — the largest profit-taking session of 2026 — one day after that high.
CryptoQuant still calls this a bull market. The analytics firm points to Bitcoin crossing above its 365-day moving average, a technical threshold that has preceded past bull runs.
Short-term holders are up 33% — and selling
Wallets that bought in the last one to three months show an average unrealized profit of about 33%. That's the fattest margin since December 2024, according to CryptoQuant, and historically it's exactly the setup that tempts traders to ring the register.
They're already doing it. The 25.7K BTC realized in profit last week was the biggest single day of 2026, and it landed the day after Bitcoin's eight-month peak. Not a coincidence.
Where the correction could stop
CryptoQuant has mapped three support levels if the slide continues. The first is the 365-day moving average, around $80,000. Below that sits the 200-day moving average near $71,000. The last line is traders' on-chain realized price, roughly $67,000.
The gap between Bitcoin's current price and that first support is thin. A few more red candles would test it.
Bitcoin hit a record $126,080 last October, then rolled over after the largest liquidation event in crypto history wiped out more than $19 billion in bets. The first half of this year brought more pain: the Federal Reserve made clear it wasn't rushing to cut rates, and investors kept rotating into AI stocks instead.
But the debasement trade is back on the table. Total U.S. debt topped $40 trillion for the first time in July, and Bitcoin and precious metals like gold have historically done well when the dollar weakens. That macro backdrop is part of why CryptoQuant isn't calling this a top.
What to watch
The immediate question is whether the 365-day moving average near $80,000 holds. If it does, the bull-market thesis survives the first real test since the breakout. If it doesn't, the 200-day line near $71,000 becomes the next reference point — and the profit-taking that started last week will look less like a pause and more like an exit.
