Bitcoin Smashes ATH Again – Should You Cash Out or HODL?

Another day, another record—Bitcoin just punched through its all-time high (again). Traders are sweating over the same old question: take profits now or risk getting rekt by the next dip?

Greed or genius? The charts don’t lie—but your FOMO might. With institutional money flooding in and retail investors piling on leverage, this rally feels different. Or does it? (Cue the 2017 déjà vu.)

Here’s the kicker: Wall Street’s latecomers are now calling it a ’store of value’—right after they spent a decade dismissing it as a Ponzi scheme. How’s that for irony?

So, what’s the move? Lock in gains or ride the wave? Either way, remember: bulls make money, bears make money, but pigs get slaughtered. And in crypto, the slaughterhouse is always open for business.

Source: CryptoQuant

And yet, there may be some similarities to December. In a post on CryptoQuant Insights, user Amr Taha noted that the Estimated Leverage Ratio climbed to 0.2.

This resembled the levels the metric reached in December 2024.

Source: CryptoQuant

The Open Interest on Binance was NEAR its December levels as well. The high OI reflected strongly bullish sentiment, but also meant that volatility could be high in the short term.

Here, it’s worth noting that high speculative interest often tends to amplify rallies and pullbacks.

Evidence of market selling, profit-taking, as Bitcoin makes ATHs

Source: CryptoQuant

Binance’s netflow data showed that 4,435 BTC was sent to the exchange on 22 May. This was the largest positive netflow since 07 April. The positive inflows suggested imminent selling pressure as the price hit new highs.

And yet, the 30-day moving average of the netflow data to Binance displayed a value of -1,318 BTC. These deeply negative values were surpassed in January 2023, a considerable amount of time ago. Bitcoin had begun to recover from the bear market then, but was not yet in a bull market.

Therefore, despite the positive netflows, long-term holders have little reason to panic and sell just yet.

Source: CryptoQuant

The adjusted SOPR (aSOPR) metric is used to gauge the average profit or loss realized by all tokens moved on-chain. Its 7-day moving average showed a reading above 1, indicating more investors have been selling at a profit.

And yet, the 7-day moving average was not close to its March 2024 or November 2024 highs, although it was moving there. Hence, if historical patterns hold up, bitcoin might have a lot more freedom to expand in the current rally.

Long-term investors could look for long-term market top signals. The heightened Open Interest implied that traders and short-term holders should expect volatility and be prepared to take some profits.