It’s been over ten weeks since BTC’s terrific thud from a $64k ATH. A potpourri of regulatory hurdles, investor setbacks, and government clampdown has clipped its wings halfway down its all-time highest performance.
BTCUSD Chart By TradingView
Last week, on-chain analyst, Will Clemente, gave investors a deep dive into the actions behind BTCs last week’s performance, opening the curtains to show which actors are behind the rise and fall of BTC over the week. Here are some key excerpts:
Retail Sellers Not Guilty
Since last month’s downswing, there’s been the unofficial premonition that Bitcoin’s woes are being brewed by short retailers whose aggressive selling and exit behavior on the market continue to heap scraper high stacks of BTC’s on exchanges causing devaluation. Thanks to Will, the recently released on-chain index new shows retail sellers are not to be blamed.
Will casts the spotlight on whales – which technically are investors with more than 1,000 BTC in their wallets – as the latest culprit behind BTCs crimson downtrend. Taking a cue from Will’s chart, we see how retailers (investors with 0.001 to 1BTC), contrary to earlier purported, have been quietly acquiring more BTC while there is a significant decline in the number of whales previously present on the Bitcoin network.
Whales Eating Whales
Despite the reported reduction in the number of whales on the network, the total amount of Bitcoins believed to be held by whales have remained largely unwavering. This suggests quite interestingly, that other large-scale BTC owners are picking up all the BTCs left by whales who are set to exit the market.
Will and Willy Woo both believe the exiteers are young whales who cannot bear to see Bitcoin erode the last resistance of their leverage and are looking to throw in the towel to mitigate complete losses. The buyers are also believed to be older holders with veritable experience who must have entered the market at far lower points than what Bitcoin currently trades.
However, there are visible lapses to Will’s on-chain projections as it does not explicitly state if actually there are whales exiting the market or if they never left, and are just diversifying their new accumulations into another wallet.
Whatever the outcome, this is good for Bitcoin as it needs all the large-scale investment it can get to build value and maintain relevance.
One big takeaway from this trend is the stark reality that BTC cannot survive solely on the strength of the activity of retailers, it leans so much on whales and its trillion-dollar foundation can get wobbly in a matter of seconds if a significant school of whales decides to make for the exit door.
The second half of the year will be tougher for Bitcoin. Or will it?
