Santiment says the pattern of large holders selling while retail scoops up Bitcoin is “what historically creates bear cycles.”
Large Bitcoin holders are now controlling the smallest share of the cryptocurrency’s supply since late May, when it first reclaimed $100,000 after more than three months, according to crypto sentiment platform Santiment.
Santiment posted to X on Thursday that “whale and shark wallets” holding between 10 and 10,000 Bitcoin (BTC) have fallen to a nine-month low, collectively accounting for about 68.04% of the entire Bitcoin supply.
“This includes a dump of -81,068 BTC in just the past 8 days alone,” Santiment said, as Bitcoin fell from around $90,000 to $65,000 over the same period, a roughly 27% decline, according to CoinMarketCap. Bitcoin is trading at $64,792 at the time of publication, up from a 24-hour low of just over $60,000.
Crypto market participants often track large Bitcoin holders to spot signs of accumulation or offloading, as these moves can signal whether whales believe the asset has peaked or is poised for an uptrend.
It isn’t just large Bitcoin holders that are showing signs of caution. CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju posted to X on Wednesday that “every Bitcoin analyst is now bearish.”
The Crypto Fear & Greed Index, which measures overall crypto market sentiment, dropped to a score of 9 out of 100 on Friday, its lowest score since mid-2022, when the market was reeling from the collapse of the Terra blockchain.
While there has been a sell-off among large holders, retail investors have been aggressively accumulating. Santiment said, “This combination of key stakeholders selling and retail buying is what historically creates bear cycles.”
Related: Bitcoin slips under $64K as record-high selling intensifies: Where is the bottom?
“Shrimp wallets,” which Santiment defines as those holding less than 0.1 Bitcoin, have risen to a 20-month high since June 2024, when Bitcoin was trading at around $66,000, before falling to $53,000 just two months later in August.
However, by December 2024, it had reached $100,000 for the first time amid a booming market after Donald Trump won the US presidential election.
The cohort now accounts for 0.249% of Bitcoin’s total supply, which is equivalent to roughly 52,290 Bitcoin.
