As Corporations, Nations, and ETFs Stack Bitcoin—Who’s Left Holding the Bag?
Bitcoin’s institutional adoption hits warp speed—but every buyer needs a seller. So who’s cashing out while Wall Street piles in?
The Great Bitcoin Shell Game
MicroStrategy’s vault grows heavier. Sovereign wealth funds quietly accumulate. Spot ETFs devour supply like black holes. Yet the market hasn’t imploded from liquidity shock—meaning somebody’s feeding the beast.
Ghosts in the Machine
Mining rewards barely cover the sell-side. Retail panic sellers evaporated after the last bull run. That leaves two likely culprits: OTC desks liquidating whale positions… or early adopters finally taking profits after a decade of diamond hands. (Or maybe those ‘lost wallet’ stories were always bullshit.)
The Irony of Institutional ‘Adoption’
Funny how Bitcoin’s anti-bank revolution now depends on bankers providing exit liquidity. The ultimate HODLers might just be the suits they told us not to trust—but hey, 21 million coins can’t be wrong. Unless they can.
But that’s only counting companies that have increased their holdings.
As for who is actively selling, on the surface level, there doesn’t appear to be one major cohort that’s the culprit.
Still, miners have been slowly offloading their stock. CryptoQuant data shows miner balances overall are down about 2,000 BTC since the start of the year while retaining an eye-watering 1.8 million BTC ($191.4 billion, over 9% of the circulating supply). The US dollar value of collective miner holdings is, however, at an all-time high.
Otherwise, more than half of all ETFs have been selling the pico top. Fidelity’s FBTC has shed over 6,500 BTC this year while Grayscale’s bitcoin Trust has sold more than 20,000 BTC, with its mini-trust making up only a fraction of the difference. Many other funds have released thousands of coins in the first six months of this year.
It may not be a perfect counterbalance to Strategy, the Saylor clones, and the ETFs that are buying, but it’s clearly adding up.
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