Bitcoin (BTC) investors sitting on unrealized losses are capping price gains at $87,700, while support near $80,000 continues to strengthen, according to new analysis from onchain analytics platform Glassnode.

Key points:

• Investors who bought BTC in the latter stages of 2025 have an aggregate cost basis of around $87,700, which now functions as resistance per Glassnode analysis.
• The area immediately above $87,000 hosts several resistance levels, including the 2026 open at $87,490 and the 20-month moving average at $87,165.
• Bitcoin price support at $80,000 strengthens as bid liquidity focuses on this psychological level.

Late-2025 buyers add to the $87,000 resistance zone

New research from Glassnode, published in its Week 41 edition of "The Week On-chain", reveals that the breakeven point for a cohort of newer Bitcoin holders is currently acting as resistance. Since the start of the year, two groups of holders have kept BTC/USD from moving higher once price challenged their acquisition cost basis.

Cost-basis metrics of this kind are derived from onchain data, marking the average price at which coins in each cohort last changed hands — the reference levels where holders who bought at a loss tend to look to exit at breakeven.

In November 2025, price lost the cost basis of investors who had entered the market between six and 12 months earlier, which sat at $94,000 at the time. When price attempted to break above that trendline — then at $97,100 — in January 2026, it became resistance, triggering a rejection that pushed price lower.

A similar resistance trendline is provided by the cost basis of investors who bought BTC one to two years ago. This cohort slipped into aggregate loss in February as price fell below its cost basis of $76,900. In May, the same cost basis halted a price rebound at just above $82,000.

In both cases, underwater buyers looking to exit their positions at breakeven produced a wall of sell-side pressure that new demand could not match. Glassnode noted the extent of BTC price retracements following rejections from either cost basis:

"Bitcoin rose to the 6-12 month cost basis in January and then fell by more than a third. It met the 1-2 year cost basis in May fell by about a quarter. The 1-2 year holders also stepped up their selling into the rally at the start of October."

The cost bases for the six-to-12-month cohort and the one-to-two-year cohort currently stand at $87,700 and $99,500, respectively.

The area above $87,000 also contains the 2026 opening price at $87,490 and the 20-month simple moving average (SMA) for BTC/USD at $87,165 — a level that has historically preceded new all-time highs once reclaimed as support. With the cohort breakeven, the yearly open and the long-term average stacked within a span of about $535, that narrow band forms the tightest cluster of overhead levels on the chart.

ETF cost basis hosts new BTC price support

Below the current spot price, the cost basis of US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) marks one of several support levels of interest around the $80,000 mark. US spot Bitcoin ETFs began trading in January 2024, and their aggregate cost basis has since served as a benchmark for the average entry price of that investor base.

Glassnode calculates the spot ETF cost basis at $81,500, while Bitcoin's true market mean — the cost basis for all BTC acquired on secondary markets — sits at $77,500. Below this, the breakeven point of Bitcoin's short-term holders — wallet entities holding BTC for up to six months without selling — lies at $74,600.

As an important psychological level, $80,000 now forms a magnet for bid liquidity across exchange order books. Glassnode commented:

"The block sits just under the US Spot ETF Cost Basis, so the zone between $80K and $81.5K is order-book and on-chain support overlap. A break below it would bring the liquidation cluster just under $80K, and then the True Market Mean near $78K, into play."

Read together, the analysis frames spot price action between two clearly defined zones: an overhead cluster of cohort breakevens and technical markers near $87,000, and an overlapping on-chain and order-book support shelf near $80,000.

Source: Cointelegraph