Bitcoin Short-Term Holders Send $3.6 Billion in BTC to Exchanges at a Loss

Bitcoin investors who bought recently are moving tens of thousands of coins to cryptocurrency exchanges at a loss, adding to concerns about selling pressure as the cryptocurrency falls toward the low-$70,000 range.

CryptoQuant’s latest short-term holder profit-and-loss chart shows roughly 47,300 BTC transferred to exchanges below their acquisition price over 24 hours, compared with only about 1,100 BTC arriving at a profit.

Combined inflows stood near 48,500 BTC, or around $3.6 billion at Bitcoin’s current price of approximately $74,000.



The research company's chart below shows transfers, not completed sales. Sending Bitcoin to an exchange can be the first step toward selling, but some deposits are made for trading for other tokens, collateral, or other services. The data also does not establish exactly how much of the transferred Bitcoin was subsequently sold.

The distinction is important because the chart measures the behavior of short-term holders, a group that CryptoQuant generally defines as investors holding Bitcoin for less than 155 days.

These are often the buyers most exposed to a sudden price reversal, particularly when their holdings are worth less than they paid.

New buyers are moving coins underwater

In a November 11 CryptoQuant analysis, contributor Amr Taha identified two large waves of underwater exchange deposits over the previous week: 50,790 BTC on November 3 and 46,060 BTC on November 10.

“On November 10, profitable transfers stood near 1,700 BTC, meaning approximately 27 BTC arrived at a loss for every 1 BTC transferred at a profit,” Taha wrote.

That is an unusually one-sided flow. Investors moving coins into exchanges are overwhelmingly doing so at prices below those at which they acquired them, rather than cashing in gains from the earlier rally.

A similar pattern has occurred over several months, with recurring spikes in loss-making exchange transfers as Bitcoin’s price swung higher and lower. The latest red spike appears near the deepest readings visible since July.

Why Binance is seeing activity from recent coins