Bitcoin Investor Cohorts Master the Consolidation Phase: Here’s Their Winning Strategy

Bitcoin's sideways grind tests conviction—but smart money isn't blinking.

HODLers Dig In

Long-term holders keep stacking sats while weak hands fold. They've seen this movie before—consolidation precedes parabolic breaks.

Institutions Accumulate Stealthily

BlackRock and Fidelity scale into positions quietly. Retail panic becomes their liquidity. Classic Wall Street playbook—just with a blockchain twist.

Whales Manipulate, Traders Capitulate

Price gets shoved into a tight range. Leverage gets flushed. The cycle repeats like clockwork—because greed and fear never get old.

Consolidation phases separate tourists from residents. The real players know: boring price action builds explosive setups. Meanwhile, traditional finance still thinks Bitcoin's a 'risk asset'—proving yet again that suits move slower than blockchain confirmations.

How Are Bitcoin Investors Behaving?

Glassnode revealed that the BTC supply held by First Buyers has climbed 1% within the last five days. This cohort of investors has been buying, adding at least 50,000 BTC to their holdings. This growth from 4.88 million BTC to 4.93 million BTC over five days indicates that fresh demand for BTC is still entering the market.

Another cohort, Conviction Buyers, has grown their holdings by 10% from 933,000 BTC to 1.03 million BTC over the same period. Although this group of investors is buying, Glassnode noted that their participation is low compared to the surge recorded in April. This suggests that these market participants are hesitant because this BTC dip is too shallow for strategic buying.

While some investors are buying, others are selling, and at a loss. The BTC supply of the Loss Sellers cohort has risen by 37.8% from 63,000 BTC to 87,000 BTC in less than a week. Despite the rise, analysts insist that fewer investors are panicking because the realized losses are minimal compared to earlier this year.

As for Profit Takers, their supply has spiked by 5.4% from 1.73 million to 1.83 million BTC over the past five days. Glassnode said some investors are taking advantage of this opportunity to lock in gains, so this has resulted in the largest increase for Profit Takers on a year-to-date (YTD) basis.

Short-term Holders Realize Losses

It is worth mentioning that a particular cohort of bitcoin investors is selling their assets at a loss for the first time in seven months. The market analytics platform, CryptoQuant, revealed Tuesday that short-term holders are offloading their coins at a loss for the first time since January.

The market witnessed a similar pattern earlier this year when BTC began its deepest correction for this cycle. However, short-term holders have consistently sold at a profit since then until now. Analysts say the trend shift could indicate either weakening momentum or a healthy market reset. It remains to be seen which odds are at play.