A Rare Ethereum Trend Is Emerging as Long-Term Holders Keep Taking Losses

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A rare trend in Ethereum’s on-chain data is now hard to ignore. ETH’s long-term holders have realized losses for 81 consecutive days, a streak that has persisted even as the asset itself rallied hard.

Over that same stretch, ETH climbed from $1,689 to $2,507, a 48% gain, according to a chart shared by CoinMarketCap Research, with data as of 27 August UTC sourced from Glassnode.

A Rare Ethereum Trend Is Emerging as Long-Term Holders Keep Taking Losses — *Image Via CoinMarketCap.*

The Metric Behind the Divergence

The indicator in question is LTH-SOPR, or Long-Term Holder Spent Output Profit Ratio, which tracks whether coins held longer than 155 days are being sold at a profit or a loss.

How Unusual Is an 81-Day Streak

Context matters here, and the history is thin. Only two streaks in Ethereum’s trading history have run longer than this one.

They were a 163-day stretch that ended in January 2016, and a 161-day run that ended in May 2019. Outside of those two, no other streak has crossed 80 days since 2018.

That places the current run among the three longest periods of sustained long-term holder capitulation in ETH’s entire trading history, even while price has been climbing rather than falling.

Price Action Tells a Different Story

ETH traded at $2,504.17 as of August 28, 2026 (7:00 UTC), up 5.7% over the past seven days. The week’s path was choppier than that headline figure suggests.

Price spiked toward $2,500 on August 22, slid back into the $2,400 range through August 23 and 24, then climbed unevenly back above $2,500 by August 28.

The rally has come with real volatility, not a smooth grind higher, which lines up with a market where long-term holders keep exiting into strength rather than sitting still.

Why Long-Term Holders Might Be Selling Into Strength

The pattern isn’t necessarily a warning sign on its own. Techgaged previously reported on the opposite side of this dynamic, when ETH accumulation addresses were adding to positions sharply during an earlier phase of the year.

That showed that long-term holder behavior can shift quickly between accumulation and distribution.

Techgaged also flagged a related structural change when roughly half of ETH’s supply moved into staking contracts, a trend that tends to reduce the liquid supply available for exactly this kind of long-term holder selling.

Whether the current LTH-SOPR streak marks late-stage distribution after a painful drawdown, or the early stages of a longer supply squeeze once these sellers exhaust themselves, may become clearer if the reading finally climbs back above 1.

Disclaimer:
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, or trading advice. The views expressed are based on publicly available data, market observations, and the author’s interpretation at the time of writing. Cryptocurrency markets are highly volatile and unpredictable, and past performance or current technical setups do not guarantee future results. Readers should conduct their own research and consult with a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions. TechGaged does not accept liability for any losses incurred based on the information presented.

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