Long-term Bitcoin holders are currently exerting persistent selling pressure on the BTC price. Could this be seen as a sign of a “TradFi version of an initial public offering (IPO)”? The question has officially been raised…
Long-term BTC holders continue to sell
Each Bitcoin cycle is part of a reality linked to new developments in the cryptocurrency sector, to the point where one might question the relevance of continuing the four-year cycle associated with halvings, given that traditional finance has now established itself as one of the main drivers of its growth over the past year.
This momentum led to a new all-time high of $126,000 last October. Since then, the price of BTC has been on a steady decline, recently settling around $85,000 following a drop of more than 30%. The reason: “long-term holders [who] have not stopped selling.”
This reality was highlighted in a recent report published by the analytics firm K33 Research, which found that a quantity of BTC that has been dormant for at least two years is currently facing the largest and fastest selling pressure recorded in recent years, totaling 1.6 million BTC estimated at $140 billion.
A figure that skyrockets to $300 billion by 2025 alone when considering BTC that has been dormant for more than a year. This significant selling pressure does not align with the market’s bearish phase, according to analysts at CryptoQuant.
Increased activity among long-term Bitcoin holders
This 30-day peak in distribution by long-term holders (LTHs) is one of the largest in the past five years, and it typically appears near macroeconomic peaks, not troughs.
CryptoQuant
A silent Bitcoin IPO?
Why isn’t BTC trending upward, while the S&P 500 and gold are hitting all-time highs? A question posed by former Wealth Management research director Jordi Visser, in response to what he describes as a misreading of current data.
Indeed, as the regulatory framework becomes clearer around the world and Bitcoin adoption becomes widespread in the highest echelons, its long-term holders seem to be deciding to take well-deserved profits. A situation comparable to a “TradFi version of an initial public offering (IPO)” for Bitcoin.
Bitcoin has never had a traditional IPO because it has never been a company. But economic forces don’t disappear just because the structure is different. They simply manifest themselves differently.
Jordi Visser
According to Jordi Visser, the current situation with BTC corresponds exactly to “what happens during the distribution phases of IPOs,” when early investors methodically liquidate their positions in a market where investors “wait for the distribution to end before becoming aggressive.”
