Bitcoin Profit-Taking Hits $1.5B – Temporary Dip or Bearish Reversal?

Whales just dumped $1.5B in BTC gains—classic 'buy the rumor, sell the news' behavior. But let's not pretend Wall Street doesn't do this weekly with less volatility.

Is this a healthy pullback or the start of a deeper slump? Markets breathe, even crypto ones. The real question: who's loading the dip while others panic?

Remember: corrections shake out weak hands. If you believed in $100K BTC at $60K, why doubt it now? (Spoiler: Because humans are terrible at hodling.)

Profit-taking hits $1.5B in one day

Source: Glassnode

This rising selling activity was observed by Glassnode. According to the data, Entity-Adjusted Realized Profit spiked sharply.

On the 3rd of June alone, BTC clocked three separate hourly surges of $500 million, totaling $1.5 billion in realized profit.

This marks one of the most aggressive waves of profit-taking since the recent rally began.

Naturally, when BTC pushed to new highs, sellers locked in meaningful returns, with the average coin capturing a +16% profit.

This shows that most of those selling are in profitable positions and are getting significant returns.

Source: Glassnode

With prices continuing to surge, fewer than 8% of trading days have been more profitable for investors. This indicates that the market is gradually shifting into profit-taking and holders could continue selling.

Short-term holders lead the exit

Source: CryptoQuant

The question is: Who is selling at such a high rate?

According to CryptoQuant data, we see that short-term holders are aggressively selling.

The STHs SOPR surged from 0.99 to 1.04, suggesting that, when realized price spiked, it was mostly driven by short-term holders.

In fact, many appear to have closed positions once BTC cleared $106K.

Source: CryptoQuant

Another reason that STHs are selling is that Bitcoin’s Net Unrealized Profit is also declining.

After BTC pullback from a recent high, the gap between the current market price and average cost basis for STHs shrank. Those who recently acquired BTC are now seeing less profit or making losses.

With these conditions, STHs have decided to sell to close in profit or avoid losses.

Will this wave of selling break $104K?

Undoubtedly, the surge in profit-taking behavior is cause for alarm.

Often, a high selling pressure leads to downward pressure on prices. If STHs continue to take close positions, it could result in bitcoin making some more losses.

As such, a continued surge in realized profit will see the BTC stock-to-flow ratio dip, resulting in a negative impact on price action.

Thus, the conditions observed here, if prolonged, could see BTC breach its critical support level of $104k and dip towards $102,683.