On March 11, the price of Bitcoin fell to a four-month low of $76,600, and the crypto market has entered a long-term consolidation phase since then. While most investors’ risk aversion has intensified day by day, the selling pressure from long-term Bitcoin holders has continued to decrease. Analysts call this special phenomenon “the market’s unique dynamic balance.” Data shows that on March 18, the activity of long-term Bitcoin holders (i.e. wallets that have held Bitcoin for more than 155 days) was very quiet, and the selling pressure showed a significant decline.
This decline in selling pressure is consistent with the changes in some other key on-chain indicators. The Binary Spending Indicator, which is used to measure whether long-term holders continue to sell large amounts of Bitcoin, also showed a slowdown. At the same time, the overall holding supply of LTH has begun to recover after a long period of decline. This behavior reflects that investors prefer to continue to hold rather than sell Bitcoin, indicating that the sentiment in the crypto market is changing, and sophisticated investors are optimistic about the future trend of Bitcoin prices.
In traditional market cycles, the top of the market often sees a large number of long-term holders taking profits and selling, which is often seen as a new sign that the market is turning from bull to bear. But the current cycle is different from previous cycles. Even though the price of Bitcoin is in a consistent correction state, long-term holders still do not sell Bitcoin and keep holding it, indicating that many long-term investors may still be waiting for further increases in Bitcoin prices.
A more optimistic signal comes from Bitcoin’s new “whales”. According to CryptoQuant data, wallet addresses that have purchased and held at least 1,000 Bitcoins in the past six months are still actively buying. Since November 2024, these wallets have cumulatively purchased more than 1 million Bitcoins, with more than 200,000 new Bitcoins in the past month alone. Analysts say the rapid accumulation of this new whale reflects that institutions and high-net-worth investors are full of confidence in Bitcoin’s long-term prospects and are becoming highly influential crypto players in the current market cycle.
At the same time, several industry leaders have called the recent drop in Bitcoin prices a “normal correction” and do not believe that this is the beginning of a bear market. They believe that the market is currently only in the stage of waiting for a new narrative to drive the market, and the top of this cycle has not yet arrived. This also further supports the view that the current market is in a consolidation period rather than the beginning of a bull-bear transition.
