Bitcoin briefly traded above $76,000 on April 16, but an analysis said on-chain indicators show it is still too early to talk about the start of a new bull market.

According to blockchain media outlet Cointelegraph, the bitcoin market has not seen enough new demand and capital inflows despite the price rebound.

The key basis is the profit zone for active investors and the flow of capital inflows. CryptoViz.art, an analyst at on-chain analytics firm Glassnode, used the True Market Mean (TMM) indicator to estimate the average purchase price of active bitcoin investors. The indicator is calculated by dividing investor capitalisation by an activity-adjusted circulating supply, and excludes long-dormant coins and lost supply.

Bitcoin fell below this baseline on Jan. 31 and has not recovered for 75 days. As a result, the average active holder remains in a loss zone. The maximum drawdown widened to 20 percent, and it is still about 5 percent below the average entry price, the analysis said.

CryptoViz.art said it is important to regain this baseline, which currently stands at $78,013. The analyst said restoring TMM is key for active investors to return to a profit zone, and noted that in past cycles, regaining this zone coincided with a reset in momentum.

Past cases were also cited as a factor that holds back a bull-market call. Since 2016, bitcoin has fallen below this baseline 10 times, with durations ranging from 2 days to more than 11 months. In the 2018 to 2019 and 2022 to 2023 cycles, drawdowns widened to as much as 57 percent, and in March 2020 it fell 40 percent over 49 days.

Capital flows have also yet to show a clear sign of improvement. Bitcoin analyst Axel Adler Jr said the 365-day growth rates of market capitalisation and realised capitalisation have remained negative for all 105 trading days so far in 2026. The latest reading is minus 0.000652. That means the market is failing to attract enough new money to sustain higher price levels.

The 30-day change in realised capitalisation followed a similar trend. There were only 7 days of positive inflows this year, including a brief stretch in mid-January. It has stayed in negative territory since Jan. 23. The decline narrowed somewhat, from minus 0.54 percent in early April to minus 0.32 percent recently.

Realised capitalisation itself fell to $1.08 trillion from $1.12 trillion at the start of the year. The decline is 3.23 percent. Adler Jr drew a line against viewing the latest improvement as a bullish turn, saying, "It is only that the pace of bitcoin outflows has slowed." He added that to be seen as a meaningful change, both indicators need to turn positive and remain above zero for a certain period.

The trend shows that the recent price rebound and the market's internal strength do not yet align. Expectations for a shift to gains can form based on price alone, but without a recovery in active holders' break-even level and fresh capital inflows, it is difficult to view it as a trend-reversal signal. The market's focus is expected to be on whether bitcoin can regain the baseline around $78,013, and whether realised-capitalisation indicators actually succeed in turning positive.

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