The price of bitcoin has been closely tracking the realized price in 2026, currently around $76,200, according to Checkonchain, since early April.
The realized price is the average onchain acquisition price of all bitcoin that last moved within a given year. In other words, it reflects the total cost basis of market participants from 2026, and some market participants see it as a more meaningful measure than traditional psychological support or resistance price levels.
In February, when bitcoin fell to nearly $60,000, the market found support near the 2023 realized price, reinforcing the growing importance of these cohort cost basis levels in shaping market structure.
This weekend, the largest cryptocurrency briefly dipped to $74,500 before rebounding from its 128-day moving average, another closely watched technical level.
At its current price, bitcoin trades below two major onchain metrics combined around $77,000: the true market mean and the short-term cost basis for the holder. Both levels are widely watched as indicators of broader market sentiment and short-term positioning.
Attention is also turning to options expiration on May 29 on Deribit, where about $6.6 billion in open interest is set to expire.
The largest concentration of call options, about $600 million, is at the $80,000 strike price. The largest put positioning is concentrated at $75,000, with about $377 million in open interest. Market makers and traders are encouraged to keep price action locked between these levels as expiration approaches, contributing to the current period of compressed volatility.
Glassnode data shows that more than 15% of bitcoin’s circulating supply has been acquired between $74,000 and $83,000, underscoring how compressed the current trading supply has become and how much supply is concentrated around these levels.
