Short-Term Holder Supply: Definition

Q: What counts as a short-term holder?

Most on-chain analytics providers classify a unit of a coin as short-term-held while the wallet holding it has held it for less than roughly 155 days from the last time it moved on-chain. Once that coin crosses the 155-day threshold without moving, it reclassifies into long-term holder supply. The exact cutoff and methodology (last-move-based versus cost-basis-based) can vary slightly by data provider.

Q: Why is 155 days used as the threshold?

The roughly 155-day mark is derived from historical Bitcoin on-chain behavior: statistically, coins that stay unmoved past that point are held by owners much less likely to sell in response to short-term price swings, so the metric's original researchers (Glassnode/Unchained Capital, building on earlier coin-age work) used it as the empirical dividing line between reactive short-term holders and conviction-driven long-term holders.

Q: Does a rising Short-Term Holder Supply mean prices will fall?

Not on its own. A rising STH Supply simply means more of the circulating supply recently changed hands, which can happen during strong rallies (new buyers entering) or during distribution phases (long-term holders selling to new entrants). It needs to be read alongside price trend, STH realized price, and profit/loss state to interpret whether that recent-buyer cohort is sitting on gains or losses.

Q: How is Short-Term Holder Supply different from exchange reserves?

Exchange reserves measure how many coins sit in exchange-controlled wallets, regardless of when they arrived there. Short-Term Holder Supply measures coin age across all wallets, exchange or otherwise, based on how recently that supply last moved on-chain. A coin can be short-term-held while sitting in a personal wallet, and long-term-held coins can still be deposited to an exchange - the two metrics capture different dimensions of holder behavior.

Q: Why is short-term holder supply the more price-sensitive cohort?

Because its cost basis sits close to the current market price by construction. Coins that moved recently were repriced recently, so a modest price move can flip a large share of this cohort between unrealized profit and unrealized loss, whereas supply acquired far below current levels stays in profit through much larger swings. That proximity is why cohort-restricted versions of profit and valuation metrics are usually built on this group rather than the aggregate.

Q: Does short-term holder supply grow during accumulation or during distribution?

During either, which is the difficulty with reading it directionally. The cohort grows whenever coins move, regardless of why, so buying that moves coins on chain and selling that moves coins on chain both add to it. Distinguishing the two requires additional evidence about where the coins went, such as whether they moved toward or away from exchange address sets. The supply figure alone establishes that turnover occurred and nothing about its direction.

Q: What is short-term holder cost basis, and why is it watched alongside supply?

It is the average acquisition price of the coins in this cohort, computed the same way as realized price but restricted to recently moved supply. It is watched because it tracks the market closely, so the relationship between the current price and this cohort's basis describes whether recent participants are collectively above or below water. Pairing the two is more informative than either alone, since the size of the cohort determines how much supply that condition applies to.

Q: Does a transfer between two exchange addresses reset coins into this cohort?

In the unadjusted metric, yes. Any movement resets the age clock, and exchange internal transfers are movements, so venue housekeeping can add substantial supply to the short-term cohort without a single customer transaction. Because exchange balances are large and their internal movements are frequent, this is one of the larger contaminants in the series. Entity-adjusted constructions exclude identified internal transfers, which is why adjusted and unadjusted versions of this metric can differ noticeably.

Q: Can short-term holder supply be compared across different assets?

Only loosely. The age threshold that defines the cohort was derived from the spending behaviour of one network, and there is no reason the same number describes the point where holding behaviour changes on another. Assets also differ in how much of their activity occurs on chain rather than inside venues, which changes how much supply is captured at all. Comparing the shape of each asset's series against its own history is defensible; comparing the levels directly is not.

Direct Answer

Short-Term Holder Supply is the portion of a crypto asset's circulating supply held by wallets whose coins last moved on-chain within roughly the last 155 days. It is an on-chain, coin-age-based metric used to estimate how much of the current supply is held by recent buyers rather than long-term holders, which matters because short-term holders are statistically far more likely to sell in response to price volatility.

Key Takeaways

Short-Term Holder (STH) Supply is the sum of coin units that last moved on-chain within roughly the past 155 days.
It is the complement of Long-Term Holder (LTH) Supply, which covers coins unmoved for longer than that threshold.
The 155-day cutoff comes from empirical Bitcoin holder-behavior research, not a fixed protocol rule, and can be approximated differently across data providers.
STH Supply is typically expressed both as an absolute coin count and as a percentage of total circulating supply.
Analysts pair STH Supply with STH realized price and STH profit/loss ratios to gauge whether recent buyers are underwater or in profit.
A coin reclassifies from short-term to long-term automatically once it crosses the age threshold without moving - no holder action is required.
Spending a coin (moving it on-chain) resets its age clock, even if the same wallet still ultimately controls it.
The metric is derived from UTXO or address-cohort age-tracking and is most mature for Bitcoin, with adapted methodologies used for some other UTXO-based or account-based chains.

How Is Short-Term Holder Supply Calculated?

Short-Term Holder Supply is measured the same way as its long-term counterpart - by tracking coin age on-chain - but it isolates the more reactive, recently-moved side of the ledger. The general methodology is:

STH Supply = Σ (coin units whose last on-chain move occurred < ~155 days ago)

What distinguishes this cohort is recency: an on-chain data provider tracks every unspent transaction output (UTXO) - for account-based chains, an analogous cohort-based approximation is used - and records the timestamp of the last time each unit of the asset moved between addresses. Any coin that has moved within roughly the last 155 days (sometimes implemented as a fixed 155- or 150-155-day rolling window depending on the provider) counts toward Short-Term Holder Supply, since a recent move usually means a recent change of hands and a cost basis close to current price - the combination that makes this slice of supply more liquid and more prone to reactive selling. Everything older than that window is summed into Long-Term Holder Supply instead. Because every unit of supply falls into exactly one bucket at any given time, the two figures always add up to total circulating supply:

STH Supply + LTH Supply = Circulating Supply

Short-Term Holder Supply is typically expressed as a percentage of circulating supply (STH Supply ÷ Circulating Supply × 100), which makes it easier to track how much of the market is in reactive hands at any given time, independent of overall supply growth.

A Simple Illustration

Consider a hypothetical asset with 20 million coins in circulating supply. Suppose an on-chain data provider's age-band breakdown shows 4.5 million coins last moved within the past 155 days, and the remaining 15.5 million coins have sat unmoved longer than that. In this hypothetical scenario, Short-Term Holder Supply would be 4.5 million coins, or 22.5% of circulating supply (4.5M ÷ 20M × 100).

If, over the following weeks, a sustained rally draws in a wave of new buyers who purchase and hold coins that previously belonged to long-term holders, the STH Supply figure would rise as more of the supply is re-tagged with a fresh acquisition date - even though the total circulating supply hasn't changed. These figures are illustrative only; for real, current values, consult an on-chain analytics provider's published dashboards or API (see References below), since Swoopr does not publish live on-chain data on this page.

Why Short-Term Holder Supply Matters

Short-Term Holder Supply is used as a proxy for near-term sell-side risk. Because recently acquired coins are held by owners with a shorter time horizon and a cost basis close to current price, this cohort tends to react faster to drawdowns - selling at a loss during sharp corrections - and to profit-taking opportunities during rallies, compared with long-term holders who have already weathered multiple cycles. A rising STH Supply during a price advance often signals fresh demand and new market participants entering; a rising STH Supply during a decline can signal that previously long-held coins are being redistributed to newer, more reactive hands, which some analysts view as a sign of fragile, less "sticky" ownership.

Wooden Scrabble tiles arranged to spell 'Phishing', illustrating online security concepts. — Photo by Ann H via Pexels

STH Supply is typically read alongside STH realized price (the average acquisition price of that cohort) to see whether short-term holders are collectively in profit or loss - a condition historically associated with either continued momentum (in profit, less selling pressure) or capitulation risk (in loss, motivated sellers). No single reading of STH Supply in isolation predicts price direction; it is one input among several holder-behavior metrics.

Limitations and Common Mistakes

Methodology differences across providers. The exact age threshold and whether it is a hard cutoff or a probabilistic band varies by data source, so STH Supply figures are not always directly comparable between platforms.
Coin movement doesn't always mean a change in ownership. Internal wallet consolidation, exchange-internal transfers, or custodial reshuffling can reset a coin's age and shift it into the short-term bucket without any actual buying or selling occurring.
Best developed for Bitcoin and other UTXO-based chains. Account-based chains require adapted cohort methodologies that are less standardized and less battle-tested.
Not a standalone trading signal. STH Supply describes holder composition, not price direction - it needs to be combined with realized price, profit/loss data, and broader market context.
Custodial and exchange wallets blur the picture. Coins held on behalf of many end users in a single exchange wallet are tracked as one entity's age profile, obscuring the actual holding periods of the underlying retail owners.

Frequently Asked Questions

What counts as a short-term holder?

Most on-chain analytics providers classify a unit of a coin as short-term-held while the wallet holding it has held it for less than roughly 155 days from the last time it moved on-chain. Once that coin crosses the 155-day threshold without moving, it reclassifies into long-term holder supply. The exact cutoff and methodology (last-move-based versus cost-basis-based) can vary slightly by data provider.

Why is 155 days used as the threshold?

The roughly 155-day mark is derived from historical Bitcoin on-chain behavior: statistically, coins that stay unmoved past that point are held by owners much less likely to sell in response to short-term price swings, so the metric's original researchers (Glassnode/Unchained Capital, building on earlier coin-age work) used it as the empirical dividing line between reactive short-term holders and conviction-driven long-term holders.

Does a rising Short-Term Holder Supply mean prices will fall?

Not on its own. A rising STH Supply simply means more of the circulating supply recently changed hands, which can happen during strong rallies (new buyers entering) or during distribution phases (long-term holders selling to new entrants). It needs to be read alongside price trend, STH realized price, and profit/loss state to interpret whether that recent-buyer cohort is sitting on gains or losses.

How is Short-Term Holder Supply different from exchange reserves?

Exchange reserves measure how many coins sit in exchange-controlled wallets, regardless of when they arrived there. Short-Term Holder Supply measures coin age across all wallets, exchange or otherwise, based on how recently that supply last moved on-chain. A coin can be short-term-held while sitting in a personal wallet, and long-term-held coins can still be deposited to an exchange - the two metrics capture different dimensions of holder behavior.

Why is short-term holder supply the more price-sensitive cohort?

Because its cost basis sits close to the current market price by construction. Coins that moved recently were repriced recently, so a modest price move can flip a large share of this cohort between unrealized profit and unrealized loss, whereas supply acquired far below current levels stays in profit through much larger swings. That proximity is why cohort-restricted versions of profit and valuation metrics are usually built on this group rather than the aggregate.

Does short-term holder supply grow during accumulation or during distribution?

During either, which is the difficulty with reading it directionally. The cohort grows whenever coins move, regardless of why, so buying that moves coins on chain and selling that moves coins on chain both add to it. Distinguishing the two requires additional evidence about where the coins went, such as whether they moved toward or away from exchange address sets. The supply figure alone establishes that turnover occurred and nothing about its direction.

What is short-term holder cost basis, and why is it watched alongside supply?

It is the average acquisition price of the coins in this cohort, computed the same way as realized price but restricted to recently moved supply. It is watched because it tracks the market closely, so the relationship between the current price and this cohort's basis describes whether recent participants are collectively above or below water. Pairing the two is more informative than either alone, since the size of the cohort determines how much supply that condition applies to.

Does a transfer between two exchange addresses reset coins into this cohort?

In the unadjusted metric, yes. Any movement resets the age clock, and exchange internal transfers are movements, so venue housekeeping can add substantial supply to the short-term cohort without a single customer transaction. Because exchange balances are large and their internal movements are frequent, this is one of the larger contaminants in the series. Entity-adjusted constructions exclude identified internal transfers, which is why adjusted and unadjusted versions of this metric can differ noticeably.

Can short-term holder supply be compared across different assets?

Only loosely. The age threshold that defines the cohort was derived from the spending behaviour of one network, and there is no reason the same number describes the point where holding behaviour changes on another. Assets also differ in how much of their activity occurs on chain rather than inside venues, which changes how much supply is captured at all. Comparing the shape of each asset's series against its own history is defensible; comparing the levels directly is not.

References

CFA Institute Research and Policy Center: Digital Assets and On-Chain Analysis

Disclaimer

This content is for educational purposes only and does not constitute investment, financial, tax, or legal advice. Swoopr Investment does not recommend any specific security, token, or trading strategy. On-chain metrics like Short-Term Holder Supply are one input among many and should not be used in isolation to make investment decisions. Figures used in illustrations on this page are hypothetical and not live market data. See our Financial Disclaimer for more information.

Short-Term Holder Supply: Definition and Meaning