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Description

The Net Unrealized Profit/Loss is a difference between Realized Cap and Market Cap, with Realized Cap being the value of every coin at the last time it moved. In other words, the Net Unrealized Profit / Loss represents the net profit or loss that would be realized if every coin was sold.

Note that this metric also contains the unrealizable profit of “Lost Coins” whose gain or loss cannot be realized and are considered “inactive”.

As suggested by Adamant Capital (the creators of the metric): “The measure of Unrealized P&L estimates the total dollar amount of paper profits/losses in Bitcoin, but it does not clearly filter out the relative change that accompanies it. By dividing Unrealized P&L by the Market Cap, we arrive at the Relative Unrealized P&L, which can be interpreted as an indicator of investor sentiment.”

We cover ETH and BTC NUPL.

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Use Case

Trader

Traders can use this metric as a measure of opportunity cost risks, where holding tokens can become costly as the network is able to capture profits (i.e., as the NUPL increases, so too does the opportunity for realizing gains through selling tokens).

Analyst

Analysts can use this metric to project opportunity costs to sell and / or buy.

Researcher

Researchers can use this metric to identify correlations between sentiment and price, as well as to identify periods of net gains capture (for example, how long does it take for a new NUPL all time high to decline, signaling possible trends).

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Methodology

Relative Unrealized P/L = (Realized Cap - Market Cap) / Market Cap.