Whale accumulation and ETF inflows had paused the Bitcoin selloff. At least temporarily.
But a Sunday night selloff has renewed worries around market conditions.
After weeks of heavy selling pressure, Bitcoin spent the back half of the holiday week doing something it hasn’t done in a while: recovering.
The driver – multiple large BTC holder cohorts flipped from net distribution to net accumulation for the first time in months.
On-chain data showed that the 10,000+ BTC “mega-whale” cohort shifted into positive accumulation territory for the first time since August. Their accumulation-trend score jumped toward the high end of the range, signaling that the biggest balance sheets were finally adding rather than trimming.
Right behind them, the 1,000-10,000 BTC cohort registered a similar flip into net buying after weeks of steady outflows.
And retail holding < 1 BTC showed the strongest accumulation since July.
At the same time, ETF outflows slowed meaningfully and flipped to net inflows.
The BTC ETFs saw $70M in net inflows on the week, the first week of inflows since Oct 24.
Even stronger, the ETH ETFs saw a whopping $312M in net inflows (their strongest since Oct 10).
All resulting in a 10% gain across the board for crypto majors on the week.
Until last night.
Bitcoin fell from a local high near $92,000 all the way through $86,000 in a major Sunday night selloff that led to $650M+ in liquidations.
As the dust settles this morning, BTC is holding at $85,700 and crypto majors are down 6-8% across the board.
Not the start to December that we wanted. And now even Saylor is talking about selling.
The 4-year cycle truthers and bears are out in full force, fully expecting this cycle to repeat all of the others, meaning a Bitcoin dip to the $70k range or lower.
And then for most of last week, the bulls finally got some glimmers of hope. Prices stabilized and rebounded. Whales started buying again. ETFs flipped positive.
But then a whole week of progress reversed last night in a few hours.
This week will be very telling about the near-term future for crypto prices.
If the whales keep buying, they can put a bottom in on Bitcoin (and likely the broader crypto sector). And the ETFs will likely follow suit.
Else, we likely revisit the lows around $80k or perhaps go lower.
Here's a rundown of major token, protocol and airdrop news from the day:
Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:
