This year, Shiba Inu has experienced a major 60% decline in its profitability metric below 50%, indicating a difficult time ahead for most of its investors. The marked price decline seen on the given chart is closely related to this decline in profitability.

Understanding the on-chain metrics and general market sentiment is essential for speculating about what might happen next as SHIB struggles on. In the past the profitability metric — which shows the proportion of holders who are profitable at the current price — has been a crucial gauge of investor mood and market health.

More than half of SHIB holders are currently losing money, as indicated by the metric’s current drop below 50%. This could potentially increase selling pressure as investors attempt to reduce losses. This change is in sharp contrast to SHIB’s performance earlier in the year, which was higher for a greater percentage of its holders. Upon examination of the on-chain data, we can observe that SHIB’s substantial transaction volume has experienced a downturn, particularly in the quantity of transactions surpassing $100,000 in value.

This decline in major transactions can be a sign that the whales, or large investors, who usually cause the most significant price movements on the market, are losing interest. With 82 big transactions in the last 24 hours and a low of just 56 over the previous seven days, there has been a noticeable downward trend.

Moreover, SHIB’s concentration by large holders is still high at 73%, indicating that a sizable portion of the supply is held by a small number of wallets. This may be interpreted as a vote of confidence from large investors, but it also implies that any sizeable sell-off by these holders could have a big effect on the market.

All of the signals combined — exchange-based and on-chain — point to a bearish outlook. Significant decreases in large transactions are observed, and net network growth is slightly negative. If any encouraging catalysts do not surface, the market looks to be preparing for more declines, as evidenced by the negative bid-ask volume imbalance.