Valuation · Bitcoin
MVRV, explained
Market value divided by realized value — the ratio that tells you whether Bitcoin, on average, is sitting on a profit or a loss. How it works, why it drifts lower each cycle, and how we turn it into a 0–100 score.
- Formula
- MV ÷ RV
- Low anchor
- 1.0
- High anchor
- 3.5
- History from
- 2011
market value over realized value
coins, on average, at break-even
historically stretched territory
daily, bitcoin-data.com
What is MVRV?
One number: Bitcoin's market value divided by its realized value. When it's above 1, the network as a whole is sitting on an average unrealized profit. When it's below 1, the average coin is underwater.
Market value is the number everyone already knows — circulating supply times the current price. Realized value is the part that makes MVRV interesting: it prices every coin at the price it last actually moved on-chain, then adds those up. It's an estimate of what the entire supply last changed hands for, built from real transactions rather than a single current quote. We take the ratio ready-made from bitcoin-data.com's free public MVRV figures rather than working out market value and realized value ourselves.
Why does realized value matter more than market cap alone?
Market cap tells you what the network is worth right now, at today's price, for every coin. It says nothing about what holders actually paid.
Realized value answers that instead. A coin that last moved in 2014 is still valued at its 2014 price in the realized cap, even if the market has since moved on ten times over. Sum that across the whole supply and you get a rough collective cost basis — the level at which, on average, the network breaks even.
Divide the two and MVRV becomes a single number that reads the same at any price level: how far above or below that collective break-even point the market currently is.
What do the 1.0 and 3.5 levels mean?
MVRV at 1.0 means market value equals realized value — the average coin on the network is exactly at break-even. Historically, MVRV dropping to or below 1.0 has coincided with deep bear-market lows: the points where most of the market is underwater and the panic selling has largely exhausted itself.
MVRV at 3.5 is the other anchor — a level that, across past cycles, has sat inside stretched, historically overheated territory, without necessarily marking the extreme of any given cycle.
Those two numbers, 1.0 and 3.5, are the classic textbook reading of MVRV. On our own chart they draw the cold/hot zone shading you see behind the price line, but they are not what drives the 0–100 risk score you see day to day — that comes from a different calculation, covered below.
Has MVRV ever been wrong?
It has correctly flagged the broad shape of every completed Bitcoin cycle — deep troughs near or below 1.0, stretched conditions well above it. But like any single on-chain measure, it comes with limits.
It is a network average, not your position
MVRV describes every coin on the network at once. It says nothing about when you personally bought, and a market-wide average can sit comfortably in profit while plenty of individual holders are underwater.
The 1.0 / 3.5 anchors still shade the chart, just not the score
Those two numbers still draw the cold/hot zone shading you see behind the price line. But they don’t drive the risk score itself — that is today’s reading ranked against MVRV’s own full history — so the shaded zones and the live risk score can tell slightly different stories.
Cycle peaks have compressed, not grown
Each Bitcoin cycle has produced a lower MVRV peak, relative to its own history, than the one before it. A ratio that keeps compressing over time makes any fixed “overheated” line a moving target.
It says nothing about timing
MVRV can sit in a stretched reading for months before anything happens, and it can also stay cheap through periods with no catalyst in sight. It measures a state, not a countdown.
How do we turn MVRV into a risk score?
Fixed thresholds age badly. Each Bitcoin cycle has produced a lower MVRV peak, relative to its own history, than the one before it — a metric that keeps compressing over time makes any single "overheated" line a moving target. So instead of scoring today's MVRV against 1.0 and 3.5 directly, we rank it against its own full history.
In practice, the risk score is today's MVRV ranked against every MVRV reading Bitcoin has ever produced — the share of all days on record with an equal or lower value, rounded to a whole number between 0 and 100. A reading of 80 means today's MVRV is higher than roughly 80% of every day on record, whatever the raw ratio happens to be. That ranking always uses the whole history, including the days that came after, so a reading from years ago can shift slightly as more recent extremes are added.
MVRV doesn't ask "is the ratio above 3.5?" anymore. It asks "how does today compare to every day Bitcoin has ever had?"
How do you read the MVRV chart?
Watch the gap, not the level. The distance between market value and realized value is the story. A wide, growing gap means unrealized profit is building across the network. A closing or negative gap means that profit is being given back.
Below 1.0 is rare, and that's the point. Most of a cycle sits above break-even. Extended stretches at or below 1.0 have historically marked the depths of a bear market, not routine volatility.
Where it fits
MVRV is a valuation indicator — it answers whether Bitcoin, on aggregate, is cheap or expensive relative to what holders actually paid. It doesn't call exact tops or bottoms, and it says nothing about price timing on its own.
It appears in both our Bitcoin and Ethereum heatmeters as one of fourteen inputs feeding a composite cycle score, alongside indicators that measure completely different things — moving-average timing signals, miner economics, sentiment, holder behaviour. The Ethereum Heat Meter uses Bitcoin's MVRV reading, because the equivalent Ethereum figure isn't published. MVRV counts for about 6% of the Bitcoin score and 5% of the Ethereum one, and we adjust those weights as the indicators are re-tested. In neither case does MVRV alone decide the score — it's one voice in a panel of fourteen.
Common questions
What does MVRV stand for?
Market Value to Realized Value. Market value is Bitcoin’s ordinary market cap — circulating supply times the current price. Realized value (or realized cap) values every coin at the price it last moved on-chain, then adds those up, giving an estimate of what the whole supply last changed hands for rather than what it is worth today.
How do you read the MVRV ratio?
MVRV above 1.0 means the average coin on the network is sitting on an unrealized profit; below 1.0 means the average coin is underwater. Readings well above 1.0 have historically coincided with late-cycle, overheated conditions — though the level that counts as “extreme” has trended lower with each cycle — and readings at or below 1.0 have coincided with deep bear-market lows.
Where does Blockchain Decoded get its MVRV data?
From bitcoin-data.com, which publishes the daily ratio ready-made and free to the public. We don’t work out market value and realized value ourselves — we take their number and score it against its own history.
How does Blockchain Decoded turn MVRV into a risk score?
We rank today’s MVRV against every day in its history: the score is the share of all days on record with an equal or lower reading, rounded to a whole number between 0 and 100. So 80 means today’s MVRV is higher than roughly 80% of every day Bitcoin has had, whatever the raw ratio happens to be.
Is a high MVRV reading always bad?
No. It flags that coins are, on average, sitting on a large unrealized profit — the condition under which past cycles have topped — not a guaranteed top. Each Bitcoin cycle has produced a lower MVRV peak than the last, so a level that was extreme in 2013 was merely elevated by 2021.
What range does MVRV normally sit in?
Roughly 0.5 to 4 across its whole history. A reading above 10 is a data error rather than a real market condition, so we leave those off the chart.
Related guides
Others in price & cycle models — What price is doing relative to its own history, trend and long-run models.
- Reserve RiskHow patient long-term holders are against the price they could sell at — cheap when they hold through a rally.
- Risk WaveHow far price has stretched from its long-run average, adjusted so Bitcoin’s wild early years don’t dwarf recent moves.
- Oscillator RiskHow today’s market conditions rank against every reading on record — 0 is the calmest, 100 the most stretched.
- BDZOur own measure of how far Bitcoin’s price has stretched from its recent average, in either direction.
- RSI Cross SignalA popular momentum gauge crossing its own average — a sign the direction is turning, not just that price has run hot.
Every indicator we track — the full glossary.
See where it stands right now
Everything above is the metric on its own terms. The live chart plots market value against realised value — what the whole supply is worth now versus what it last moved at — with our risk score, today ranked against every day on record, on top. That same score is also one of the fourteen inputs behind the Bitcoin Heat Meter, if you want it read alongside the rest of the cycle.