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Bitcoin Stalls Around $112K as Whales Lead Wave of Selling
Cohort selling and long-term holder distribution add to ongoing pressure.
Updated Sep 24, 2025, 9:07 a.m. Published Sep 24, 2025, 9:04 a.m.
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What to know:
- Every wallet cohort, from under 1 BTC holders to over 10,000 BTC whales, is in distribution, with the largest whales selling most aggressively.
- Long-term holder supply is declining, as one year plus supply has dropped from 70% to 60% and two year plus supply from 57% to 52%, while five year plus holders remain steady.
Bitcoin remains stagnant in the $110,000 to $120,000 range, while gold and U.S. equities hover near all-time highs.
According to Glassnode’s Accumulation Trend Score by cohort, selling pressure is evident across all wallet groups. This metric measures the relative strength of accumulation based on the size of entities and the volume of coins acquired over the past 15 days. A value closer to 1 signals accumulation, while a value closer to 0 signals distribution. Exchanges and miners are excluded from this calculation.
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Currently, every cohort, from wallets holding less than 1 BTC to whales holding over 10,000 BTC, is in distribution. The largest whales, with holdings above 10,000 BTC, are showing some of the most aggressive levels of selling over the past year.
Looking at long-term holder supply, the percent of circulating supply unmoved for at least 1 year has dropped sharply from 70% to 60%. The peak was in November 2023, when bitcoin traded near $40,000. At the same time, 2+ year holders also began to sell, with their share declining from 57% to 52%.
The three year plus cohort now sits just above 43% and has been steadily falling since November 2024. These wallets largely represent buyers from the previous cycle top in November 2021 at around $69,000, many of whom accumulated more during the 2022 bear market when prices hit lows of $15,500. With bitcoin’s recovery, these investors are realizing gains.
By contrast, five year plus holders remain steady, reflecting that the longest-term investors are not participating in the sell-off.
This trend shows that investors sitting on unrealized profits from this cycle are continuing to realize profits, adding to the ongoing selling pressure.
Read more: BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF: Bearish Sentiment in IBIT Stays Strong for Two Straight Months
AI Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk's full AI Policy.
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Ce qu'il:
- U.S. searches for “bitcoin zero” on Google hit a record high in February as BTC slid toward $60,000 after hitting a peak in October.
- In the rest of the world, searches for the term peaked in August, suggesting fear is concentrated in the U.S. rather than worldwide.
- Similar U.S. search spikes in 2021 and 2022 coincided with local bottoms.
- Because Google Trends measures relative interest on a 0-to-100 scale amid a much larger bitcoin user base today, the latest U.S. spike signals elevated retail anxiety, but does not reliably guarantee a clean contrarian reversal.
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