Bitcoin Price, Onchain Flows And Global Macro: ’s What Changed In 2025
Bitcoin’s technical and onchain market structure was robust throughout 2025, but ever-shifting macroeconomic conditions eventually put a cap on BTC price. Will the trend shift in 2026?
Bitcoin’s 2024–2025 price action highlighted a disconnect between improving high-timeframe onchain structure and restrictive macroeconomic conditions. While crypto-native liquidity and supply dynamics strengthened during Bitcoin’s (BTC) 2024 rally, external variables, like elevated real yields and Federal Reserve balance sheet contraction, imposed valuation limits as the cycle progressed.
Bitcoin rallied to above $100,000 from $42,000 in 2024 alongside rising stablecoin inflows and sustained BTC exchange outflows.
A key BTC valuation metric expanded to 2.2 from 1.8 in 2024-2025, but remained below overheating thresholds of 2.7.
In 2025, elevated real yields and balance sheet contraction may have limited BTC’s returns despite a resilient onchain position.
Bitcoin began 2024 trading near $42,000 and advanced steadily through the year, breaking above $100,000 in Q4. This rally coincided with an improvement in onchain liquidity conditions. Monthly ERC-20 stablecoin exchange inflows averaged $38-$45 billion per month, reflecting a surplus of deployable capital within crypto markets.
At the same time, correlation analysis revealed a negative 0.32 rolling relationship between stablecoin inflows and Bitcoin exchange net flows. This indicated that liquidity entering exchanges coincided with BTC moving off exchanges.
This combination aligned with accumulation-driven rallies rather than distribution, helping the durability of Bitcoin’s 2024 uptrend. It also aligned with the spot ETF demand era and long-term institutional positioning, rather than short-term leverage-driven activity.
Valuation metrics supported this backdrop. Bitcoin’s market value to realized value (MVRV) 365-day ratio rose from 1.8 in early 2024 to around 2.2 by year-end.
On a high-timeframe basis, the data pointed to structural strength rather than speculative overheating, allowing prices to trend higher without triggering broad-based profit realization or forced selling.
Source: CoinTelegraph