Long-term holders (LTH)

Long-term holders are not people identified by name but coins grouped by age. Analytics firms such as Glassnode classify any bitcoin that has sat unmoved in the same output for roughly 155 days as LTH supply. The threshold comes from the statistical observation that the longer coins stay dormant, the less likely they are to be spent soon.

Analysts track how much of the supply LTHs control and how it changes. A rising LTH share in a falling market suggests accumulation and patience, while a sharp drop during a rally usually means veterans are taking profit into new demand. Spending by very old coins often appears near cycle peaks.

The label is an approximation. Exchanges reshuffling cold wallets, custodians moving funds to ETF accounts or a holder consolidating outputs can all look like old coins being sold when nothing changed hands. Lost coins also inflate LTH supply, so the metric works best alongside other on-chain and market data.