Bitcoin Market Calm As Long-Term Holder Sell-Side Activity Dries Up: Is the Bullish Phase Returning?
Bitcoin's market enters a period of eerie calm as long-term holders stop selling—a classic signal that often precedes major moves.
The Quiet Before the Storm?
Sell-side pressure from Bitcoin's most committed investors has evaporated. These are the players who weathered the last bear market, the so-called 'diamond hands.' When they stop moving coins to exchanges, supply tightens. It's a fundamental shift that doesn't need a fancy chart to understand: fewer coins for sale means price discovery tilts upward.
Reading the On-Chain Tea Leaves
This isn't about daily volatility or Twitter hype. This is on-chain data telling a story of accumulation and holding. The metrics are clear: long-term holder supply is not just stable—it's growing. New demand meets a shrinking pool of available Bitcoin. It's simple arithmetic, the kind Wall Street analysts would understand if they looked beyond their quarterly earnings reports and traditional finance dogma.
A Return to Bull Market Psychology?
The psychology shifts when the strongest hands stop taking profits. It transforms the market narrative from 'when will they sell?' to 'what price will make them sell?' That's a much higher bar. This behavioral lock-up creates a foundation for the next leg up, assuming macro conditions don't throw another tantrum—always a big 'if' in this space.
The Cynical Take
Of course, in crypto, 'long-term' is a relative term. For some, it means holding through a lunch meeting. For others, it's a multi-cycle conviction that looks downright irrational until it makes them generational wealth—a concept as foreign to traditional finance as explaining DeFi to a central banker.
The stage is set. The holders are holding. The question isn't if momentum returns, but when the dam breaks and price catches up to the underlying supply crunch. Just don't expect the calm to last forever.
Selling BT Long-Term Bitcoin Investors Falls Drastically
The Bitcoin price movement has turned bearish as the crypto market becomes increasingly volatile, but investors are demonstrating an encouraging trend. A clear indication of the encouraging trend from BTC investors is their renewed willingness to hold onto their coins rather than sell them off.
According to the report from Frank, a crypto expert and BTC market quant, this declining selling pressure is observed among long-term holders. Currently, selling pressure from the cohort has fallen to remarkably low levels, which reflects a notable shift in market behavior and sentiment.
Typically considered as the network’s most conviction-driven players, these investors continue to refrain from selling their BTC, causing the Long-Term Holder Sell-side Risk Ratio to fall to its lowest level in the past year. When selling pressure from the group decreases, it often implies confidence in future price increases or the conviction that current levels do not yet warrant selling.
Frank highlighted that the last time the Long-Term Holder Sell-side Risk Ratio reached this low, it was the $49,000 bottom following the Yen carry trade unwind. A few months later, the price of BTC witnessed a rally to a new all-time high. Should BTC follow the same trend as last time, a major price surge might be on the horizon. As a result, the expert is highly confident in BTC’s short-term and medium-term prospects.
Investors On Crypto Exchanges Are Losing Interest In Selling
Selling pressure has also reduced on major centralized exchanges, especially on Binance. On the platform, large investors or whale transactions involving BTC movement into the exchange are steadily declining. In other words, significantly less Bitcoin is being sent to trading platforms by large holders compared to earlier.
Unlike retail investors, whales are typically seen as a more cautious kind of BTC holders and are less susceptible to changes in the market. Data shows that whale inflows have been divided by and are currently valued at around $2.74 billion. At the end of November 2025, these inflows to Binance surged, reaching an average monthly total of nearly $8 billion when BTC’s price drops back below the $90,000 mark.
Currently, daily movements are far less frequent compared to the cluster seen at the end of November. This shift in dynamics indicates that whales have changed their behavior and are no longer selling aggressively, leaning more toward a waiting strategy. In the meantime, the holding action appears to be encouraged by the current consolidation period, which greatly lessens the selling pressure from whales, whose impact on the market can be substantial.
