As bitcoin ( BTC-USD ) undergoes arguably its worst bear market in its 14-year history, 24.6M BTC addresses, or around 51%, were in negative territory, CoinDesk reported Wednesday, citing on-chain data from IntoTheBlock. That's the largest share of addresses holding bitcoin ( BTC-USD ) in a loss, otherwise known as "out-of-the-money" addresses, since the start of March 2020's brief pandemic-inspired downturn. 45% of the total 47.9M bitcoin ( BTC-USD ) addresses, though, were "in-the-money," meaning they had unrealized gains, while the rest were roughly equal to the purchase price of their investments. Note that most BTC addresses were out-of-the-money (addresses that purchased tokens at an average price above BTC's current price) at the end of prior market downturns, according to the article. For instance, 55% of BTC addresses were out-of-the-money in January 2019, when bitcoin bottomed out at around $3.2K and then climbed to more than $5K three months later. The historical data implies that bitcoin ( BTC-USD ) could be near its bottom ahead of the next bull cycle, though it's important to bear in mind that past performance is no guarantee of future results. Seeking Alpha contributor Daniel Jones, meanwhile, warned that a full on bitcoin collapse is likely about to happen. The implosion of crypto exchange FTX, followed by a series of fallouts from other high-profile crypto-related firms, dented bitcoin's ( BTC-USD ) price significantly (from last year's all-time highs) in a relatively short period of time. The token changed hands at $16.39K at 1:15 p.m. ET, down 14.6% M/M, -65% YTD and -71.5% Y/Y. Earlier, Cathie Wood reiterated that bitcoin will reach $1M by 2030 .
