What is SOPR?

Suppose four illustrative coins move on the blockchain today, when the price is $50,000. They were received at $20,000, $40,000, $50,000 and $50,000. The day's spending turned $160,000 of entry value into $200,000.

$200,000 ÷ $160,000 = 1.25. That ratio is the day's SOPR.

What SOPR measures

SOPR stands for spent output profit ratio. It compares the dollar value of coins when they are spent with their dollar value when they were created, across all coins spent in a period.

The formula is total value when spent ÷ total value when created. In Bitcoin terms, each spent output is a piece of coin received in one transaction and spent in a later one.

SOPR uses the same idea as on-chain cost basis: the price when a coin last moved stands in for what the holder paid.

It counts only coins that moved in the period, so it measures profit and loss that holders actually locked in.

Worked example

These numbers are illustrative.

1. Four coins are spent at $50,000 each. Value when spent: 4 × $50,000 = $200,000.
2. Value when created: $20,000 + $40,000 + $50,000 + $50,000 = $160,000.
3. SOPR = $200,000 ÷ $160,000 = 1.25.

On average, every dollar of entry value was spent at $1.25. Two coins carried big gains and two moved at breakeven, but SOPR reports only the total.

On a second illustrative day, the price is $40,000 and two coins move, both received at $50,000. Value when spent is 2 × $40,000 = $80,000, and value when created is $100,000.

SOPR = $80,000 ÷ $100,000 = 0.80. The coins that moved that day were spent at a 20% loss on average.

Reading SOPR above and below 1

A SOPR of exactly 1 means coins moved at breakeven on average. Above 1, the coins spent that day were in profit. Below 1, they were spent at a loss, which often means some holders gave up.

The line at 1 matters because of how people behave. Many holders dislike selling at a loss. In an uptrend, when price dips and SOPR falls toward 1, selling tends to dry up and SOPR turns back up.

In a downtrend, holders who bought higher often sell as soon as they are back to breakeven. Rallies then push SOPR up to about 1, where it tends to stall.

The line at 1 works a little like support and resistance inside the metric itself. It is a tendency only, and in sideways markets SOPR crosses 1 back and forth for long stretches.

Variants you will see

Raw SOPR includes every spent output, even coins that change hands within minutes. Those moves are mostly noise, so some providers publish an adjusted SOPR that leaves out outputs younger than about one hour.

Short-term holder SOPR counts only coins that had sat still for less than a set time, often about 155 days. Long-term holder SOPR counts the older coins.

Recent buyers react fast to price, so their SOPR swings around 1 more often. Long-term holders tend to spend in profit, and their SOPR can stay well above 1 for months.

Charts often smooth SOPR with a moving average, such as 7 days, because daily readings jump around.

Where SOPR misleads

SOPR is weighted by value, so a handful of large outputs can move it. One holder moving a large amount of old coins at a big gain can lift a whole day's reading.

Not every spend is a sale. Moving coins between your own wallets, or an exchange reorganising its wallets, counts as a spend and resets the coin's cost.

Providers filter some of these moves with address clustering and their own wallet labels, using different rules, so their SOPR lines differ.

Trades between customers inside an exchange do not show at all, because no coins move on the chain. SOPR sees only what the blockchain records.

SOPR describes what holders already did, so it is no timing signal on its own. A reading below 1 can last for weeks in a falling market, so treat it as context and keep your risk management in charge of entries and exits.