Glassnode Week 44 on-chain analysis: volume vs fees

Glassnode's BTC Market Pulse for Week 44, published on 2026-10-26, found that the value of bitcoin moving between holders rose sharply in seven days while fees and active addresses both fell. On the surface, the chain looked busier and quieter at the same time. This article explains what each of those three metrics measures, why they can disagree, and what the numbers cannot tell you.

What the Week 44 report shows

According to Glassnode, bitcoin was trading near $80k when the report came out, after a midweek attempt toward $85k failed. The price is background here. The interesting part is the network activity underneath it.

Entity-adjusted transfer volume rose 25.9% in a week, from $4.4B to $5.5B, and Glassnode placed it near its high band. Over the same period, total fee volume dropped 8.8%, from $203.2K to $185.2K, and sat under its low band. Daily active addresses slipped 2.2%, from 629.3K to 615.2K, close to their own low band.

Glassnode read the fee drop as softer demand for block space and linked the address count to quieter retail use. Put simply: more value moved, but fewer addresses took part and they paid less to do it.

What is on-chain analysis measuring here?

On-chain analysis means reading the public bitcoin ledger to describe how coins move, who holds them and at what cost. The three metrics in this week's divergence each count a different thing.

Transfer volume adds up the dollar value of coins sent on-chain. The entity-adjusted version tries to remove transfers where an owner simply shuffles coins between their own addresses. Glassnode groups addresses it believes belong to the same holder, called an entity, and only counts value that moves between different entities.

Fee volume is the total paid to miners to get transactions into blocks. Bitcoin fees depend on how much space a transaction takes and how crowded the queue is, not on how much value it carries. A transfer of a large sum can cost the same as a small one.

Active addresses counts the unique addresses that sent or received coins in a day. It is a rough proxy for users, not a count of people.

Read together, the pattern fits a week where fewer, larger transfers moved most of the value. That is one plausible reading of the data, not something the ledger proves.

The holder metrics behind the shift

Glassnode's capital flow indicators point the same way. Hot capital share, a gauge of newer and more price-sensitive money, rose 3.9% to 21.1%, well above its high band. The ratio of short-term holder supply to long-term holder supply edged up 0.8% to 14.8%. Monthly realized cap change eased 7.6% to 1.2% but stayed above its high band, which Glassnode said still signals net capital coming in. Realized cap values each coin at the price it last moved, so it rises when coins change hands at higher prices.

"Capital keeps rotating into newer hands," Glassnode wrote in the report. Profit metrics cooled a little. Supply in profit fell from 68.2% to 67.3%, roughly two thirds of circulating coins. Net unrealized profit to loss ratio dropped from 9.0% to 7.8%. The realized profit to loss ratio went from 0.6 to 0.8, as profit-taking spiked around the midweek high before easing.

Limits: why these numbers can mislead

Each metric rests on assumptions that a reader cannot check from the chart alone.

• Entity adjustment depends on clustering. Glassnode itself notes that its exchange figures rely on address labels and proprietary clustering, and may miss reserves when exchanges do not disclose their addresses. A wrong cluster can count internal shuffles as real transfers, or hide real ones.
• Dollar volume mixes two things. A rise in transfer volume can come from more coins moving or from the same coins being valued at a different price, so the headline figure alone does not say which.
• Active addresses are not people. One exchange can serve many users from a few addresses, and one person can use dozens. Batching and address reuse push the count in opposite directions.
• Bands are relative. High and low bands compare a reading with its own recent history. Crossing a band says a value is unusual, not that it is good or bad.

None of these limits makes the data wrong. They mean the divergence is a question to investigate, not an answer.

What to watch next

The useful test is whether the gap persists. If transfer volume stays near its high band while fees and active addresses stay low, the case for a few large movers strengthens. If the three metrics converge again, the week may simply have been noisy.

It also helps to look at whether large transfers line up with known exchange or custodian addresses, keeping in mind that labels can be incomplete. Glassnode describes its report as information and education only. None of these metrics, alone or together, is a signal for where the price goes next.

Sources

• Glassnode, 26 Oct 2026

Drafted by AI from the research and on-chain sources listed, then published automatically once checks confirmed the figures against those sources and found no copied text. Not reviewed by a person. Metrics are explained, never turned into price calls.