BITCOIN REALIZED CAP

Realized cap adds up every Bitcoin at the price it last changed hands, rather than at the latest price. A coin bought for a few hundred dollars a decade ago and never moved since is still counted at those few hundred dollars, however much it would fetch now. Add up all of them and you get what the market has genuinely paid for the coins it holds.

That makes it the quieter twin of the total network value. One of those two numbers moves every time the price moves, because it is the price multiplied by a coin count that barely changes. This one does not. A coin only changes what it contributes on the day it moves, so this total ignores the price entirely until somebody trades.

Which is what makes its direction worth watching. It rises when coins change hands above what the last owner paid, and falls when they change hands below. Rising means money is arriving and being committed at higher prices. Falling means the opposite, that coins are moving at a loss and money is leaving. It is the closest thing on the chain to a record of money in and money out.

Three things it is not. It is not a valuation, and it says nothing on its own about whether Bitcoin is cheap or expensive. It leans low, because coins held patiently for a decade are still counted at decade-old prices. And coins whose owners have lost the key that moves them sit in here forever at whatever they last cost, because the chain cannot tell a lost coin from a patient one.