Bitcoin (BTC) is currently trading 13% below its record high of around $108,000, the most since President-elect Donald Trump won the U.S. election in early November.
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Since then, the largest cryptocurrency has spent several periods at 10% below the record, a level that some investors term a correction.
The selling pressure originates with long-term holders (LTHs), which Glassnode defines as investors who have held bitcoin for at least 155 days. They tend to sell into price strength after accumulating bitcoin when prices are depressed.
LTHs were already distributing a significant amount of BTC about a week ago, previous CoinDesk research showed. Since then, they’ve picked up the pace and have reduced their total holdings to about 13.2 million BTC from around 14.2 million in mid-September.
On Thursday, they sold almost 70,000 BTC, the fourth-biggest one-day sell-off this year, according to Glassnode data.
On the flip side, for every seller, there has to be a buyer. In this case, it’s the short-term holders (STHs) who have accumulated approximately 1.3 million BTC in the same time period. The number indicates they picked up coins from the LTHs and more.
In the past few days the narrative has changed and LTHs are looking to sell more than short-term traders are looking to buy. That imbalance has contributed to the price decline of around $94,500.
There are 19.8 million tokens in circulating supply and another 2.8 million sitting on exchanges, though that balance continues to fall: about 200,000 bitcoin has left exchanges in the past few months.
These cohorts are key to monitoring bitcoin’s price activity in the next few days.
