5 Bearish Onchain Charts

Crypto prices have underwhelmed since Trump's much-hyped inauguration, and now the stock market is joining in on the malaise.

There is an increasing number of macro charts floating around on Twitter that sell the story of an impending bear market, but after several months of crypto price depression, there's a lot of noteworthy onchain data here too.

Today, we’re discussing five crypto indicators that are showcasing trouble ahead 👇🐻

1️⃣ Low Volatility

Traders have been fascinated with the seemingly mild price swings experienced by cryptocurrencies in recent weeks compared to the relative wallops endured by traditional stock indexes.

While the popular narrative suggests that crypto is being used to hedge against swelling U.S. tariff uncertainty, this phenomenon might also hint at an impending bear market…

As investors first began pricing in the potential implications of COVID in February 2020, BTC found itself trading in harmony with the broad-market S&P 500 stock index (similarly to how the pair has behaved since March 2025). However, immediately after the World Health Organization cried “pandemic,” global contagion fears accelerated and the pot finally boiled over.

In what remains its single worst trading day since 2013, on March 12, Bitcoin’s value was abruptly slashed by 40% as traders trampled over the bodies of their fallen comrades to get out at any price. Although BTC bottomed the very next day, it would take another week for stock markets to establish their lows.

Crypto’s long-term oriented, retail-heavy holder base is conditioned to stomach volatility in hopes of avoiding capitulation at unfavorably low prices, but when it becomes undeniably clear that prices are going lower, speculative internet monies are often the first thing to be jettisoned from investor portfolios, leading tokens to overshoot their mark to the downside.

Puzzlingly low crypto volatility as of late suggests that holders are indeed clinging onto hopes for higher prices, yet should economic worries become increasingly salient, a collective failure to derisk could cause crypto markets to capsize as everyone rushes to the opposite side of the boat at the same exact time.

2️⃣ Funding Rates

The easiest way to access leverage in crypto markets is with perpetuals, a special type of futures contract that has no settlement date and instead uses periodic “funding rate” payments to align the contract price with spot markets.

When there is high demand for leverage in either the long or short direction, funding rates swing to the extremes as perpetual prices dislocate from spot markets. This mechanic makes it expensive to hold a consensus position for a prolonged period of time and signals that a reversal could be in the works.

Highly positive and negative funding rates are clear danger signals for over-exposed leveraged speculators, but a more holistic view of funding rate markets can also provide important insights into the general appetite for crypto risk.

While BTC funding rates have remained at normalized (i.e., barely positive) levels since the Trump election pump cooled off in mid-December 2024 – signaling no apparent immediate danger of an abrupt move – a lack of speculative risk-taking has been plainly evident since BTC’s initial all-time high break in March 2024.

Crypto’s previous bear cycle was preceded by an almost identical pattern, with comparatively muted funding rates throughout the second leg of the rally in late 2021 followed by a prolonged period of normalization, during which spot prices trended ever lower until FTX collapse capitulation.

3️⃣ Onchain TVL

Since peaking at $151B in December 2024, the total value of crypto assets deposited into DeFi protocols (TVL) has declined by 37%, tumbling to $96B at the time of this analysis.

While bulls have turned to touting the increasing supply of stablecoins as a sign of crypto resilience (the metric has decoupled from TVL with 15% gains in 2025), an eerily similar trend of investors stabling up amid declining TVL can be observed throughout early 2022, just prior to the onset of the previous bear market.

It is natural to see risk-averse investors taking profits and migrating from volatile tokens into dollar-pegged stables, particularly as crypto prices drop, but the failure for flows to find their way back into DeFi may indicate that onchain allocators feel more comfortable biding their time on the sidelines in anticipation of a sharper market drop.

4️⃣ HODLers Distributing

The “Bitcoin 1-Year HODL Wave” measures the number of Bitcoin addresses that have held BTC for at least one year without conducting any outgoing transactions. With the rudimentary Bitcoin network largely lacking usable onchain applications, HODL waves can be helpful in approximating when long-term crypto holders begin selling tokens.

In December 2023, the one-year HODL wave peaked at an all-time high of 70.5%, marking the commencement of distribution. The metric has ground lower both times BTC was marching upwards to establish new all-time high prices this cycle, indicating that some longer-term holders were actively cashing out during the rallies.

While the one-year HODL wave has begun sloping upwards in 2025, potentially signaling the onset of accumulation, this development comes one year after the initial rally that broke $69k BTC all-time highs. A continued market decline risks placing the purchases of newly minted HODLers (who likely have weaker hands) underwater and perpetuating the distribution phase.

It is impossible to time an impending bear market by measuring the number of Bitcoin addresses that have not conducted outbound transactions on a specific time horizon, but the one-year HODL wave has reliably peaked ahead of every cyclical BTC downturn since 2011.

5️⃣ Faltering Fund Flows

American spot BTC ETFs are new to this market cycle, but with these instruments capturing large swaths of the TradFi/institutional investor bid for crypto assets, they are most likely an accurate indicator for where we are in the cycle.

Following nearly one year of consistent gains, spot BTC ETF assets under management petered out at $37B of inflows on December 18, 2024. Although the inflows were reignited during the weeks surrounding President Trump’s inauguration as excitement reached a fever pitch for the nebulous policies he might implement to support the crypto industry, AUM has been on the decline since BTC rejected $100k on February 21.

Nothing in crypto remains static forever. With the market now decidedly less optimistic that the Trump Administration will be switching onto the “Bitcoin Standard” any time soon, if prices are primed for another leg down, spot BTC ETFs are almost certain to begin offloading substantial inventory for the first time in their history.