Welcome to Asia Morning Briefing, a daily summary of top stories during U.S. hours and an overview of market moves and analysis. For a detailed overview of U.S. markets, see CoinDesk’s Crypto Daybook Americas.
As Asia begins its trading day, bitcoin BTC is trading above $104,500 and, despite a possible looming war in the Middle East, has been relatively flat on the day with negligible market movement. Indeed, for the last full week, BTC is only down 2%, according to CoinDesk market data.
Analysts are debating whether the crypto market’s current stillness is a sign of strength or if something more precarious is afoot.
Three new reports this week from CryptoQuant, Glassnode, and trading firm Flowdesk all point to the same surface conditions: low volatility, tight price action, and subdued on-chain activity. Additionally, retail participation has waned, and institutional players, from ETFs to whales, are now shaping the structure of flows.
But it’s CryptoQuant that’s flashing the most urgent warning.
In its June 19 report, CryptoQuant argued that BTC could soon revisit $92,000 support or even fall as low as $81,000 if demand continues to deteriorate.
Spot demand is still increasing, but well below trend. ETF flows have dropped by more than 60% since April, while whale accumulation has halved. Short-term holders, who are usually newer market participants, have shed approximately 800,000 BTC since late May.
Their demand momentum indicator, which tracks directional buying strength across key cohorts, is now reading negative 2 million BTC, the lowest in CryptoQuant’s dataset.
Glassnode, however, sees the same signals and arrives at a far less dire conclusion.
In its weekly on-chain update, the firm acknowledges that the Bitcoin blockchain is “quiet,” meaning transaction counts are down, fees are minimal, and miner revenue is subdued.
However, this suggests that it may not be a weakness, but rather a reflection of the network’s evolution. On-chain settlement volume remains high, but it’s concentrated in large-value transfers, suggesting the chain is increasingly being used by institutions and whales.
The derivatives market, Glassnode notes, now dwarfs on-chain activity, with futures and options volumes regularly exceeding spot by 7x-16x.
That shift has brought more sophisticated hedging, better collateral practices, and a more mature, if less frenetic, market structure.
France-based Flowdesk, a market maker and trading firm, has views that fall somewhere in between.
