[Digital Today reporter Jinju Hong] Bitcoin's (BTC) 'short-term holder stress indicator' has fallen to its lowest level since after the 2018 bear market, raising the possibility that the market may be nearing a macro bottom.

On Feb. 18 (local time), Cointelegraph reported that Checkonchain data showed the short-term holder (STH) Bollinger Bands indicator entered its deepest oversold zone in about eight years.

The indicator applies Bollinger Bands to the gap between Bitcoin’s spot price and the average purchase price of holders with a holding period of less than 155 days. When price breaks below the lower statistical band, it means it is trading at a level markedly below the recent buyers’ average cost. This is interpreted as a signal suggesting the possibility of 'capitulation' by short-term investors.

Past cases show such oversold zones often coincide with macro bottoms. After a similar signal in late 2018, Bitcoin rebounded about 150 percent over about a year and then rose about 1,900 percent over the next three years. The same pattern appeared just before the November 2022 low, and Bitcoin later climbed about 700 percent to a record high of $126,270.

With the indicator reaching an extreme level for the first time since 2018, expectations of a market bottom are rising again. Attention is also on the fact that realized losses among short-term holder whales did not expand sharply even after Bitcoin neared $126,000 in October 2025. That suggests recent large buyers have not yet moved into full-scale capitulation selling.

The market is raising the possibility that selling pressure has been largely exhausted. Crypto financial platform MatrixPort also assessed in a recent report that Bitcoin may have entered a phase of building a bottom.

There are forecasts that macro liquidity factors could also act positively. Wells Fargo projected that an expansion of irregular tax refunds in the United States in 2026 could stimulate liquidity in financial markets. Ohsung Kwon (오성 권), a Wells Fargo equity strategist cited by CNBC, assessed that expanded tax refunds could lead to inflows of about $150 billion into stock and Bitcoin markets. That would absorb remaining selling pressure and could increase the likelihood that Bitcoin forms a bottom in the coming weeks, he explained.

With extreme oversold on-chain signals aligning with expectations for macro liquidity, the market is watching whether Bitcoin is at the starting point of another long-term upcycle.