Bitcoin On-Chain Alert: 2021 Cycle Coins Just Moved - What It Means for the 2026 Market
On-chain sirens are blaring. A dormant cohort of Bitcoin—coins untouched since the 2021 cycle peak—just woke up and changed wallets. This isn't just data noise; it's a direct signal from the blockchain's memory core.
The Ghosts of Cycles Past
When long-term holders move coins, markets listen. These aren't day traders chasing 5% swings. These are the 'HODLers,' the conviction crowd who weathered the 2022-2023 winter. Their decision to transact now, as we navigate 2026, sends a tectonic pulse through the network's underlying value assumptions.
Liquidity vs. Conviction
Every coin movement tells a story. Is this smart money positioning for a new paradigm, or simply profit-taking from a bygone era? On-chain analytics cut through the sentiment fog, tracking supply shifts from diamond hands to potential sellers. It bypasses Twitter hype and CNBC narratives, going straight to the immutable ledger.
The Real-Time Ledger Never Lies
Forget the talking heads. The blockchain provides a raw, unfiltered feed of economic decision-making. This movement from 2021 vaults adds measurable sell-side pressure—or reveals strategic accumulation. It's a chess move in the open, with every satoshi accounted for.
In a sector where 'fundamentals' are often just recycled buzzwords, on-chain flow remains one of the few metrics that can't be spun by a PR firm. It's the cold, hard math of digital scarcity in action—the ultimate check against Wall Street's perennial 'this time it's different' fantasy.
3 To 5 Years Old Bitcoin Supply Has Seen Movement Recently
As pointed out by CryptoQuant community analyst Maartunn in a new post on X, two transactions involving old tokens have just occurred on the Bitcoin blockchain. The on-chain metric of interest here is the “Spent Output Age Bands,” which tracks how many tokens that the various coin age groups or “age bands” are moving on the network.
In the context of the current topic, the age band of interest is the one containing coins that have been dormant for between three and five years. Here is the chart for the Bitcoin Spent Output Age Bands shared by Maartunn that shows the data specifically for this cohort:
As is visible in the above graph, the Bitcoin Spent Output Age Bands have captured two large transactions from the 3 to 5 years age band during the past couple of days. The first of these involved 539 BTC, while the second moved 1,566 BTC.
The 3 to 5 years age band corresponds to coins that were purchased between January 2021 and January 2023, essentially covering the cycle spanning over the 2021 bull market and 2022 bear market. Thus, the tokens that have just been moved were held by investors who had been sitting silent since buying in the previous cycle.
“Dormant supply waking up is often a signal—either smart money rotating or early holders exiting,” explained the analyst. It now remains to be seen whether these transactions were a temporary deviation or if long-term holder whales will make more such moves in the NEAR future.
In some other news, CryptoQuant has shared its 2025 review of digital asset exchange activity. One interesting finding is that stablecoins are heavily concentrated on Binance, with the exchange holding a combined $47.6 billion in USDT and USDC reserves. This is equivalent to 72% of the stablecoin holdings across the ten largest exchanges.
Binance also dominated 2025 in spot trading activity, recording close to $7 trillion in volume.
Binance’s dominance of trading volume wasn’t quite as stark as that of its stablecoin reserves, however, as it made up for 41% of the total spot volume among the top 10 platforms. The exchange’s share of the futures trading volume was similar, coming out at 42%.
Overall spot and futures trading volume in the cryptocurrency sector grew during 2025 compared to the end of 2024, but the yearly growth rate declined.
BTC Price
Bitcoin has been moving sideways recently as its price is still trading around the $92,200 level.
