Over $1.5 Billion Worth Of Bitcoin Leaves Exchanges As Accumulation Wars Intensify

Bitcoin continued to trade narrowly on Wednesday after a nine-week extended sell-off. As of writing, the top crypto-asset was selling for $30,210 up 1.14% in the past 24 hours.

Bitcoin’s choppiness has also been mirrored in other cryptocurrencies with ETH, BNB, XRP, and SOL among others getting stuck in price squeezes. Cardano’s ADA has however been the biggest gainer in the top cryptos and has gained 10.23% in the past 24 hours to trade at $0.64. 

Overall, most cryptocurrencies reflected strength, with the global crypto market cap reclaiming the $1.24T market cap threshold after a 2.31% increase over the last day. That said, all eyes are now on BTC as investors wait to see whether the price will break the four-week range spell, following a string of positive technical and fundamental developments.

Technically, BTC’s price continued squeeze has printed a bullish reversal ascending triangle pattern which if validated could see the price push up to $38,000. However, it has to breach overhead trendline resistance as well as the $32,400 barrier. A worse sell-off would thus unfold if the price breaks below the triangle’s current trendline support.

According to data from Santiment, over 50,000 Bitcoin have been withdrawn from cryptocurrency exchanges over the past week as the price continues to hover around $30,000. Interestingly, mega whale addresses have been accumulating along this area at an unprecedented rate.

This week, these whales tapped their highest supply of BTC in a year which, as Santiment said, “can be a promising sign.” Moreover, Bitcoin HODLERs also appear to be doubling down, with wallet growth for investors holding below 100 BTC growing significantly in the past month.

Furthermore, despite Bitcoin miners being some of the biggest net distributors since the recent sell-off with their balances declining at a peak rate of 5k to 8k BTC per month, their spending has slowed down in the past 10 or so days to 3.3k BTC. This slowdown in appetite to sell has partially been caused by a substantial decline in miner revenues.

“As profit multiples compress across the board and financial stress increases, the highest probability is that the market is within the second and historically final capitulation phase of a Bitcoin bear Market,” Glassnode wrote on Monday.

Generally, Bitcoin sentiment is still relatively negative among investors with the BTC Fear and Greed Index signaling “Extreme Fear.” However, this can “sometimes be a recipe for unexpected swings to the upside” especially with the current recipe of high leverage ratio plus over average funding rate, according to Santiment.