Bitcoin’s Hidden Battle: Miners & Whales Defy ETF Selling Pressure

While Wall Street's shiny new ETFs hit the sell button, Bitcoin's foundational players are digging in. The digital gold narrative is being stress-tested—not by retail panic, but by a quiet tug-of-war between institutional convenience and crypto-native conviction.

The Paper Hands vs. The Diamond Hands

Exchange-traded funds offer a clean, regulated wrapper for traditional finance. They're the easy button for portfolio exposure. But that liquidity cuts both ways—when sentiment sours or a spreadsheet flashes red, the 'sell' order is just a click away. It's asset management on autopilot, divorced from the ideological bedrock that built this ecosystem.

Contrast that with the miners. These aren't passive holders; they're the network's lifeblood, committing real capital to hardware and eye-watering energy bills. Selling isn't a tactical decision—it's an existential one. They hold to secure the chain and, frankly, because their business model demands it. Then there are the whales, the shadowy accumulators with pockets deep enough to ignore quarterly reports. Their moves aren't dictated by investor calls but by a longer, more cryptic game.

The Real Support Floor

This divergence reveals Bitcoin's dual nature. One face looks toward Wall Street, eager for legitimacy and lazy capital. The other remains stubbornly decentralized, governed by code and a holder base that actually understands the protocol. The ETFs provide price discovery and mainstream access; the miners and whales provide the unshakeable, often irrational, hodling mentality that has weathered every prior storm. It's the ultimate test of whether financialization strengthens the asset or simply exposes its soft underbelly to traditional market whims.

So, while the ETF flows make headlines and move markets in the short term, watch the quieter metrics—miner reserves, whale wallet movements. That's where the true conviction lies. The irony? The very instruments designed to stabilize and legitimize Bitcoin might be its most fickle friends, while the 'crypto crazies' prove to be its most reliable ballast. Somewhere, a Satoshi-era holder is smirking.

Institutions sell, BTC natives hold

BTC is still in correction territory, down nearly 7% in the past week. These market conditions caused diverse flows. Strategy once again bought more than 10,000 BTC. Michael Saylor’s company acquired 640 BTC on average each day in 2025 to date, though the metric is down from 785 BTC daily in August. 

Under these conditions, analysts are turning to miner and whale retention, seeking signs of long-term confidence. 

BTC miner reserves remain relatively unchanged at 1.89M tokens. Miners keep producing blocks even during distress conditions, with limited selling on Binance. Most miners can afford to hold due to their extremely low cost basis from previous cycles. 

BTC addresses with over 1,000 coins remain relatively stable, with only around 60 wallets divesting in the past quarter. Another 3,000 wallets with over 100 BTC were created in the past quarter, showing renewed accumulation by sharks.

Despite the recent selling, there is demand to absorb BTC almost immediately, due to the growing scarcity. 

Why did the BTC rally stall? 

The 2025 cycle had much more favorable conditions for BTC. Yet the leading coin entered another long-term drawdown, with 72 days of losses since the most recent all-time high.  

Long-term BTC analyst PlanB returned with an opinion on the current price weakness. The analyst, known for the stock-to-flow model, believes current sellers are trying to front-run another bear market similar to the 2021-2022 crash. 

Why is Bitcoin not pumping?

Because 50% is selling (OGs traumatized by 2021, technical investors looking at RSI, 4y cycle fans expecting a bear 2y post halving) while the other 50% is buying (fundamental investors, tradfi, banks).

Epic battle … until sellers are out of ammo. pic.twitter.com/er7upg25RV

— PlanB (@100trillionUSD) December 16, 2025

The current BTC market still relies on less visible accumulation and spot holders, confident in more price records in the coming years. Yet BTC is still looking for a local bottom, while traders estimate whether the previous four-year cycles are still valid. 

Based on the market value to realized value (MVRV) ratio, BTC is currently trading in similar conditions to the 2023 bear market. Short-term bearish predictions see BTC slide to $70,000 or even $40,000 before eventually returning with another bull market.

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