Bitcoin Demand Slumps—Even After $530M Whale Purchase & Record BTC Product Inflows
Wall Street's latest crypto love affair isn't moving the needle. Despite a jaw-dropping $530 million institutional buy and torrential inflows into Bitcoin products, demand flatlines like a DeFi project after its token unlock.
The disconnect? Maybe the 'smart money' forgot retail investors need groceries. Or perhaps the market's finally realizing no amount of institutional lipstick makes Bitcoin a traditional asset.
One thing's clear: When half-billion-dollar purchases can't spark momentum, even the bulls start checking their exit strategies. Welcome to crypto maturity—where the only thing more volatile than prices is institutional patience.
Bitcoin buying momentum fades amid rising institutional interest
Bitcoin's demand has slowed down in the past few days, following a shift in BTC's Apparent Demand metric to the negative side, according to a CryptoQuant report on Monday.
The Bitcoin Apparent Demand metric measures the difference between the amount of newly mined Bitcoin and the change in BTC's dormant supply. The decrease in this metric signals that new buyer demand for Bitcoin is yet to absorb the rising supply from miners and long-term holders' (LTHs) profit-taking.
"The FLOW of coins onto the market from miners and profit-taking LTHs is now greater than what new buyers are purchasing," said analyst Crazyblockk in the report.
The report highlights the possibility of increased volatility in bitcoin as a drop in buy-side momentum is often accompanied by a price correction. Likewise, the rise in long-term holder profit-taking suggests a potential conclusion from this cohort of investors that Bitcoin's price has reached a local top.
Strategy continues BTC buying alongside other public companies
The decline comes amid a rise in demand from Bitcoin treasury companies in recent weeks, led by Michael Saylor's Strategy.
The company revealed it purchased Bitcoin for the eleventh consecutive week since April 14, adding 4,980 BTC acquired at $531.9 million to its holdings last week. Strategy made the purchase at an average price of $106,801 per BTC between June 23 and June 29, pushing its total holdings to 597,325 BTC. The company is now inches from hitting a 600,000 BTC treasury milestone.
In addition to MicroStrategy, over 130 public companies have adopted a Bitcoin treasury strategy, including Metaplanet, GameStop, Semler Scientific, ProCap BTC and Galaxy Digital, according to Bitcoin Treasuries data.
Despite more companies adding Bitcoin to their treasuries in recent months, their buy pressure has had a neutral effect on the overall crypto market as most of these purchases were made via in-kind exchanges for stocks, FXStreet previously reported.
On the other hand, Bitcoin options traders have been showing caution on the options trading platform Derive, as roughly 20% of open interest has been concentrated in put options at $85,000, $100,000, and $106,000.
"This suggests that traders are positioning for potential downside, possibly bracing for macro uncertainty or profit-taking after recent strength," said Derive founder Nick Forster.
Despite the drop in demand, Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have continued seeing inflows, absorbing much of the selling pressure potentially coming from LTHs. The ETFs netted $2.2 billion in inflows last week, boosting their year-to-date inflows to $14.9 billion. This constitutes 83% of the total $17.8 billion in inflows into crypto products in the first half of 2025, according to CoinShares data.
The contrasting interests among public companies, institutional investors, and LTHs underscore a complex and cautious market environment for the top cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin trades around $107,500 at the time of publication.
