Bitcoin’s largest holders have been cashing out billions and steering market momentum downwards, dragging down bulls’ efforts to push the coin back up to $110,000 after it slipped below the $100,000 for the first time in 5 months.
According to CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju, whales have been cashing in on their profits since Bitcoin first hit the $100,000 mark in December last year. He had asserted that was the end of the bull market, but admitted that institutional acquisitions postponed a bear phase.
“Inflows from MicroStrategy (MSTR) and Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) delayed the bear market. If those fade, sellers will dominate again,” he wrote on X early Tuesday.
Santiment’s recent analysis supported the CEO’s theory, deducing that whale behavior almost always directly correlates with price movements. When large investors accumulate, prices stabilize to create a foundation for support and move on the upside.
However, when they dump holdings, that same base can erode and add more fuel to a downward market momentum. Still, Ju said that it could be a good time to buy if traders “think the macro outlook is strong.”
Over $45 billion offloaded by long-term holders in October
Long-time Bitcoin investors offloaded around 400,000 BTC in the past month, equivalent to about $45 billion, according to Markus Thielen, head of research at 10x Research. The outflow left the market “unbalanced” after months of sustained accumulation.
Bitcoin dropped below $100,000 for the first time since June, down more than 20% from the all-time high reached on October 6. Thielen expects the current market slowdown to persist into next year, even as far as taking the king coin down to $85,000 as the “maximum downside.”
The market researcher cited data from Coinbase-owned exchange Deribit, which showed a surge in demand for put contracts expiring in late November with strike prices around $80,000. Traders are supposedly building hedges against more declines and expect a different scenario to December 2024’s “Trump-market” bull run.
According to CryptoQuant contributor Crazzyblock, coins held for one to six months accounted for nearly 71% of recent exchange inflows. Holders who accumulated Bitcoin between $60,000 and $85,000 during the summer are now realizing more than 40% profits.
Bitcoin holders with positions older than two years contributed only 2.19% to recent selling pressure, while those holding for over five years made up just 0.58%. Professional transactions involving 10 to 100 BTC accounted for 53.1% of flows; the “fish” tier, those holding between 10 and 50 BTC, moved an average of 2,450 BTC daily, and “sharks” added 467 BTC.
Together, professional categories contributed over 63% of total volume, compared with 36.8% from retail investors. Analysts view this as evidence of institutional repositioning rather than retail-driven capitulation.
Spot holdings-ETF transition among veteran holders
As reported by Cryptopolitan on Monday, Head of Research at financial services platform Uphold, Dr. Martin Hiesboeck, said that a portion of Bitcoin’s “original gang” holders are now diversifying into ETFs and new blockchain projects.
“BTC whales are beginning to sell their coins as they transition into exchange-traded funds,” Hiesboeck explained, “Long-term holders have realized that blockchain itself, now used in nearly every industry, is the real revolution.”
Hiesboeck shared a chart from Bitbo showing Bitcoin’s compound annual growth rate (CAGR) declining by about 13%.
Despite the turbulence, market watchers believe Bitcoin may be undergoing a healthy correction rather than a breakdown. The 16% pullback from its all-time high mark is the third full correction of the current cycle, resetting momentum without breaking the long-term uptrend that has persisted since early 2023.
“Every time Bitcoin corrects, the same voices declare it finished. They said it after the 2018 crash to $3,191.30, and again in 2022 at $15,599.05. Yet here we are,” said Bulgarian Bitcoin influencer Plamen Andonov.
Bitcoin’s relative strength index (RSI) sits on its multi-year base, while the moving average convergence divergence (MACD) has flattened in the same range that preceded major breakouts in 2023 and 2024. Analysts point out that similar setups historically triggered rallies between 80% and 180% in subsequent months.
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