How to read it

Realized price values every coin at the price it last moved on, so it approximates what the market as a whole actually paid. Spot trading below it has meant the average holder is underwater - historically rare and short-lived.

The Z-Score is market cap minus realized cap, divided by the standard deviation of market cap. Dividing by that deviation is what makes 2011 and 2024 comparable at all: in raw dollars a modern cycle dwarfs an early one, and the ratio alone doesn't account for how much more volatile the early market was.

Readings above 7 have coincided with cycle highs; below 0.1, with cycle lows. Those bands are descriptions of four cycles, not predictions, and the sample is small enough that the next one may not respect them. Today: 0.79 (Mid-range), MVRV 1.46.

Market cap, realized cap, realized price and MVRV from the Bitcoin Research Kit (bitview.space), node-computed daily. The Z-Score is calculated here from those series. Not financial advice.