In a first for the Bitcoin network, 20,000 BTC dormant since 14 years has suddenly moved. Here’s how much profit was involved in the transaction. A Significant Amount Of Ancient Bitcoin Has Just Been Transferred As explained by CryptoQuant community analyst Maartunn in a new post on X, there have been a couple of unprecedented transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain. The transfers in question involved the movement of 20,000 BTC in two batches (that is, 10,000 tokens in each move) sitting dormant since 14.3 years ago. “This is never before witnessed in Bitcoin’s entire history,” notes Maartunn. When the tokens involved in these moves were last transacted in April 2011, they were worth a total of $15,586. Today, they are worth upwards of $2.1 billion. This naturally suggests that with the move, the owner of the tokens has harvested an extraordinary amount of profit. More specifically, the move has realized a gain of almost 13.8 million percent. An indicator that has registered a notable spike because of the dormancy-breaking transactions is the Bitcoin Coin Days Destroyed (CDD). A ‘coin day’ is a quantity that one token of the asset accumulates after being still on the blockchain for one day. When a coin that has been dormant for some number of days is moved, its coin days counter resets back to zero and the coin days that it had been carrying are said to be ‘destroyed.’ The CDD measures the total number of coin days being reset in this manner across the network. Naturally, the CDD is particularly sensitive to moves from the diamond hands of the Bitcoin market, as their tokens tend to carry a large number of coin days. The 20,000 BTC transactions from today are quite ancient, so it’s to be expected that they would register on the indicator. And indeed, as the chart for the metric displays, each of the two 10,000 BTC transfers involved the destruction of more than 52 million coin days. Thus, collectively, the moves have caused the CDD to reach over 104 million coin days. Now, what could these moves mean for the Bitcoin market? Generally, when such ancient coins move, the motive is likely to be selling. In this particular case, however, the investor involved may not be a high-conviction holder. This is because coins that reach such an old age usually get there by becoming lost, either due to their existence being forgotten or having their keys misplaced. As such, it’s probable that the tokens have only recently been rediscovered. Selling from holders carrying coins from a few years ago can be a sign of conviction breaking in the sector, but this particular move may not be it. BTC Price Bitcoin has retraced some of its latest recovery as its price has pulled back down to $107,900.
Just when the crypto market seemed like the bear market phase was about to begin, Bitcoin, the largest digital asset, has rallied hard, revisiting key price levels such as the $110,000 mark. As BTC’s price has surged sharply, whale investors are exhibiting significant optimism about the asset’s short-term prospects. A Sign Of Bold Bets Among Bitcoin Whales Bitcoin is riding a bullish wave following a renewed bullish market sentiment, causing its price to rise above the $109,000 level. Presently, whales are once again taking risks and increasing their long bets as the price of BTC undergoes a spectacular ascent. This bullish behavior among whales or big investors was announced on the X platform by Alphractal, an advanced on-chain data analytics and investment platform. According to the on-chain platform, BTC whales are in full force of the trend. The expert highlighted that these big investors’ aggressive long positions are constantly piling up while short positions are getting liquidated. Specifically, the aggressive positioning of major investors suggests that they have rekindled their belief in Bitcoin’s upward trajectory and are placing bets on even higher valuations in the future. With BTC’s price rising and whales ramping up long positions, this paints a positive outlook for the flagship asset in the short term. In the meantime, a strong undercurrent of confidence is added to the market as these big players stack leveraged bets in favor of further gains, which might pave the way for the next explosive leg-up for Bitcoin. Alphractal observed the development after examining the Whale Position Setiment metric. BTC Whale Position Sentiment is a key metric that monitors orders totaling more than $1 million. Also, the metric is considered one of the most powerful and alpha-rich indicators in the broader derivatives market. The on-chain platform stated that the metric is frequently strongly linked to the price behavior of Bitcoin, as big investors control the majority of the global trading volume. Should this trend extend alongside a continued BTC rally, it could act as a springboard to a major rally, with the flagship asset reaching a new all-time high in the upcoming weeks. BTC’s Price New Direction Is Upward After a notable bounce, Bitcoin is now challenging key resistance levels as it surges to its current all-time high. Crypto Dan, a market expert and author, has shared insights on BTC’s recent move, claiming that the direction has already shifted toward an upside trajectory. “Looking at Bitcoin’s movements from last April to the present, it appears that the market direction has shifted upward,” the market expert stated. Since April this year, the expert highlighted that US whales and institutions have been steadily reducing their selling pressure, as indicated by the red arrow on the chart. Meanwhile, their buying pressure is being maintained within the yellow box. According to Crypto Dan, Bitcoin is currently in a consolidation phase where short-term overheating is being resolved. Although there is still a chance for a pullback, the expert claims that the overall market trend is still upward, underlining his confidence toward the second half of 2025.
As Bitcoin (BTC) continues its steady climb toward its all-time high (ATH) of $111,814 recorded in May 2025, the cryptocurrency is witnessing a notable shift in its holder composition. New on-chain data suggests that BTC “weak hands” are selling their holdings to larger investors. Bitcoin Moving Upstream From Weak Hands To Big Money According to a recent Cryptoquant Quicktake post by contributor IT Tech, Bitcoin’s supply is moving upstream from retail investors to larger holders. This movement denotes a fundamental shift in the investor sentiment toward the largest digital asset. Retail investors – those holding less than one BTC – have seen a significant reduction in their holdings, with total balances dropping by 54,500 BTC year-over-year (YoY), to 1.69 million BTC. On average, this cohort has experienced outflows of approximately 220 BTC per day. In contrast, large holders – wallets with 1,000 BTC or more – have expanded their total BTC exposure by 507,700 BTC over the same period, bringing their combined holdings to 16.57 million BTC. This group is now seeing average inflows of around 1,460 BTC per day. Institutional interest in Bitcoin also continues to rise at a historic pace. Notably, institutions are currently absorbing about seven times more BTC than retail investors are selling. At the same time, the post-halving issuance of BTC is currently hovering around 450 BTC a day, raising the possibility of a true “supply squeeze” amid strong buying pressure. To recall, BTC underwent its latest halving in April 2024, when the mining reward for each block on the chain was slashed from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC. In their commentary, IT Tech noted that meaningful retail interest has yet to kick in during this cycle. Unlike previous market tops – where retail investors aggressively accumulated BTC – current data shows them exiting the market, suggesting that the bull run may still have more room to grow. Another metric that points toward the market top being far from the current price level is the Bitcoin 30-day MA Binary CDD. In a recent analysis, CryptoQuant contributor Avocado_onchain noted that the BTC market is “far from overheating.” BTC Short-Term Holder Floor Approaching $100,000 As BTC remains range-bound between $100,000 and $110,000, the short-term holder (STH) realized price – a key psychological support level – is steadily climbing. It currently sits near $98,000, reflecting rising investor conviction. Further on-chain data also shows that both retail and institutional holders are reducing exchange deposits, signalling reluctance to sell at current levels. This behavior supports the idea that many are positioning for further upside. At press time, BTC trades at $107,012, down 0.5% in the past 24 hours.
On-chain data shows the Bitcoin short-term holder whales have been taking significantly more profits than the diamond hands in this rally. New Bitcoin Whales Are Participating In Notable Profit-Taking In a new post on X, CryptoQuant author Axel Adler Jr. discussed how profit-taking has recently looked from the two major Bitcoin whale cohorts: the short-term holder and long-term holder whales. The short-term holders (STHs) and long-term holders (LTHs) are two broad divisions of the BTC network done on the basis of holding time, with the cutoff between them being 155 days. Similarly, ‘whales‘ are also a classification of the asset’s investors, but in this case, the criterion is holding balance. More particularly, whales are defined as holders with more than 1,000 BTC. As such, the STH and LTH whales would refer to the big-money members of the STH and LTH groups, respectively. Now, here is the chart shared by the analyst that shows the trend in the total amount of profit realized by these groups during the past few months: As displayed in the above graph, both of the groups have participated in some degree of profit-taking recently. Still, clearly, the new whales who got into the market in the past five months have been the ones making up for the majority of this selling. This trend is different from how it was in January, when the profit realization was more balanced across these cohorts. Historically, the STHs have tended to be reactive to market events, while the LTHs have shown resilience. So, the whales falling to the temptation of profit realization in the recent rally may not be too surprising. That said, so far, the profit-selling in the market hasn’t yet reached the same highs as in January. The whales represent a broad group that can be divided further into the regular-sized whales (1,000 to 10,000 BTC) and ‘mega’ whales (10,000+ BTC). According to data from the on-chain analytics firm Glassnode, the two groups haven’t been showing consistent behavior recently. As is visible in the above chart, the Bitcoin Accumulation Trend Score, an indicator that tells us about whether the investors are accumulating or distributing their coins, has been close to 1 for the whales recently, a sign that these large entities have been displaying strong accumulation. The smaller cohorts have also been displaying a similar behavior, but the mega whales have diverged from the rest as they have taken to distribution instead. BTC Price At the time of writing, Bitcoin is floating around $109,800, up around 6% in the last seven days.