Bitcoin Needs $81,700 to Confirm a New Bull Market — Is the Threshold Still Useful?

Bitcoin was trading near $77,572 when CryptoQuant’s 365-day moving-average threshold stood around $81,700, a gap of roughly 5%. The arithmetic makes the level appear unusually clean: a relatively modest advance would put price above a long-term trend line that CryptoQuant treats as confirmation of a new bull market.

But a market regime is not ordinarily settled by a single print above one indicator. The more useful reading is that $81,700 is a test with historical relevance, not a switch that can independently establish a durable advance. Above it sits a cluster of cost bases, ETF break-even estimates and liquidation levels. Beneath the price recovery sits an annual loss and a recovery in capital inflows that remains materially smaller than those seen in earlier expansion phases.

That does not make the 365-day average irrelevant. It defines a concrete level at which the bearish-to-bullish argument becomes stronger. It does mean that calling a new bull market on a decisive close alone would ask one technical threshold to do more work than the surrounding evidence supports.

The 365-day moving average turns $81,700 into a test, not a switch

CryptoQuant’s framework, as reported by The Block, treats a decisive close above Bitcoin’s 365-day moving average as “confirmation” of a new bull market. Contemporaneous estimates placed the average between approximately $81,700 and $83,100. At approximately $77,572, Bitcoin had not yet met CryptoQuant’s stated condition.

The $81,700 level is not a precise binary market switch. The Currency Analytics characterized it as part of a broader resistance context, while Glassnode reported additional overhead resistance and demand below levels seen in prior bull-market expansions. A reclaim of the moving average alone would therefore not establish a durable trend.

Glassnode made a similar distinction in May when it described the True Market Mean near $78,300 as a historical dividing line between bear and bull conditions. Glassnode explicitly said reclaiming it was necessary rather than sufficient, and that consolidation could require weeks to months.

Cost bases, ETF break-evens and liquidations concentrate resistance above $81,700

The case against a binary interpretation becomes clearer immediately above the moving average. The Currency Analytics characterized $81,700 as part of a resistance zone extending toward roughly $88,700, rather than a precise line separating two market states. The distance between the lower and upper bounds is material: a close at the bottom of that range would not mean the market had traversed the full supply area.

Glassnode identified a narrower but similarly consequential overhead band around $83,000 to $86,000. Its September assessment tied that range to long-term-holder cost basis, liquidation levels and U.S. spot ETF break-even estimates. Those are separate market references, but their overlap makes the area more consequential than a standalone chart level.

Cost basis matters because it locates prices at which holders acquired coins. ETF break-even estimates add another reference point for market participants whose positions moved underwater during weakness. Liquidation levels, meanwhile, can intensify price moves when leveraged positions are forced to close. None of these measures guarantees that sellers will emerge at a particular price, and Glassnode’s analysis does not make that claim. Their concentration instead explains why a move through $81,700 could encounter a more complicated market structure above it.

The practical implication is not that Bitcoin must clear $88,700 in one uninterrupted move to make a bullish case. Markets can consolidate, retest and advance in stages. Rather, it is that the relevant question after a 365-day-average reclaim would shift quickly: can Bitcoin absorb the $83,000–$86,000 band and remain supported while doing so?

That is a tougher standard than a first close above $81,700, but it is also closer to what traders usually mean by a durable trend change. The signal becomes more persuasive when the market demonstrates acceptance above a level where several distinct sources of overhead pressure converge.

The rebound has outpaced confirmation from annual performance and capital inflows

Glassnode’s figures establish the scale of the rebound: Bitcoin gained 23% across 21 sessions. The same Week 36 report placed Bitcoin down 10% year to date, leaving the broader annual decline only partly repaired.

On capital flows, Glassnode reported in May that realized-cap net inflows had recovered to about $2.8 billion per month. Prior bull-market expansions saw more than $10 billion in monthly inflows, according to the firm.

The comparison does not make $10 billion a required near-term threshold. It does, however, limit what can be inferred from a technical reclaim: the demand backdrop does not yet clearly resemble a mature bull-market expansion. Taken together, the short-run gain, the year-to-date loss and the partial inflow recovery point to a transition that may still be incomplete.

What the threshold can still establish after a sustained reclaim

The $81,700 level retains value because it offers a disciplined condition rather than an open-ended narrative. Bitcoin was below it at the time of CryptoQuant’s cited assessment, and a decisive close above the 365-day average would be a clear improvement in the technical picture. It would also place price near Glassnode’s earlier True Market Mean reference, which was around $78,300 in May and had been framed as a historical bear-to-bull dividing line.

What follows matters more than the label attached to the first close. Sustained trading above the average would show that the reclaimed level is being accepted rather than merely tested. Progress through the $83,000–$86,000 resistance band identified by Glassnode would address a separate cluster of long-term-holder cost bases, liquidation levels and ETF break-even estimates. A broader move toward the approximately $88,700 upper end of the resistance zone would further reduce the case that the market had only cleared the first obstacle.

Those are not interchangeable tests. The moving average measures a long-duration price trend. The overhead band maps areas where market structure may create friction. Realized-cap inflows offer a view of whether capital is returning with anything like the force seen in prior expansions. Their combination is more informative than any one of them in isolation.

That is also why the threshold should not be discarded merely because it is insufficient on its own. A clear rule can prevent a short-term rally from being mistaken for a confirmed regime change. The error lies in converting a useful first condition into a complete diagnosis.

For now, the evidence leaves Bitcoin with a defined technical hurdle and a wider market challenge above it. The 365-day moving average near $81,700 can establish that a recovery has crossed an important line. Whether it develops into a durable bull market depends on consolidation through the $83,000–$86,000 band, the wider resistance zone reaching toward $88,700, and demand that remains, on Glassnode’s historical comparison, well below prior expansion-phase inflows.

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.