Since the approval of spot Bitcoin ETF, the market structure and trading patterns have clearly changed. These changes have now persisted for more than two years, and their impact is becoming increasingly visible across a wide range of on-chain data. The traces recorded on the blockchain do not lie. But when the structure of the market changes, the mechanisms and standards used to interpret those traces must also evolve. A changed market ultimately requires a new analytical framework that reflects its new structure. Let’s look at a few examples. 1. Active Addresses Since the approval of spot Bitcoin ETF, institutional capital has entered the market through ETF on a scale that is difficult to compare with previous cycles. If we applied the traditional analytical framework, this level of capital inflow and market participation should naturally have caused Active Addresses to surge, just as they did during previous bull cycles. But the opposite has happened. Despite liquidity entering the market on an unprecedented scale, the number of active addresses has actually declined. 2. Changes in Exchange Whale Activity If the market has grown this much, traditional framework would suggest that the size and activity of whales should have increased as well. Yet in reality, whale activity observed on Binance and Coinbase has actually declined. 3. A Shift in Market Leadership by Address Balance In previous bull cycles, addresses holding more than 1,000 BTC clearly played a dominant role in driving the market. This cycle has been different. Since ETF approval, addresses holding between 100 and 1,000 BTC have shown a much more prominent role in market activity. ✅Summary The market structure and trading patterns have already changed. This does not mean that whale activity has disappeared. To be precise, the way whales operate has changed, and their activity is no longer being captured properly under the old data framework. I have explained the reasons behind these changes many times, so I will not go into them again here. What matters is that these structural changes have already persisted for more than two years. That raises an important question "If the market structure has changed this significantly, can we really assume that other on-chain metrics have remained unaffected?" We are already seeing multiple indicators that can no longer be interpreted as effectively using the same historical standards, and these differences are likely to become even clearer over time. I see this as an extremely important point. In particular, these structural changes may provide an important explanation for why several on-chain indicators that had been highly reliable in previous cycles failed to capture the market-top signals in the same way during the peak of the last bull cycle. If ETs continue to play such an important role in the Bitcoin market, the reliability of interpreting various on-chain metrics through the same historical frameworks and fixed thresholds will inevitably continue to decline. On-chain data has not lost its meaning. The market has changed, and the way we interpret the data must change with it.(mignolet)