Bitcoin peaked above $126,000 in early October, but recently crashed to $60,000 before slowly recovering to around $68,000. Despite the wild fluctuations, many companies are still buying this asset and betting on the long-awaited price increase.
However, some groups $BTC Holder reduced this pace.
Demand deceleration
Data shared by Alpharactal reveals that the change in the net position of short-term holders over a 90-day period has decreased, although it remains in positive territory. This means that while short-term holders are still accumulating Bitcoin, the pace of accumulation has slowed sharply in recent days.
According to the analytics platform, this slowdown signals a weakening in near-term demand momentum and has historically preceded periods of market consolidation, increased volatility, or broader regime shifts.
Against this backdrop, AlfaRactal founder Joan Wesson said recent institutional buying has not translated into increased demand from short-term holders.
“Despite news of strategies accumulating and other institutions increasing their positions, short-term holders are not accumulating at the same pace as they were 90 days ago. Analyzing a few isolated entities is not enough. The right approach is to evaluate the entire Bitcoin blockchain to understand the true underlying demand.”
Whale Holdings is different.
Separate analysis from CryptoQuant points to contrasting trends among large Bitcoin holders. It turns out that the number of whales has increased by more than 200,000. $BTC.
Although whale inflows to the exchange have increased recently, and this is often associated with short-term selling activity, overall holdings continue to increase. To capture a more medium-term perspective, our analysis tracks whale supply using monthly averages rather than short-term flows. Whales’ behavior appears to have changed over the past month, as evidenced by a 3.4% increase in holdings after the index plummeted to nearly -7% on December 15th.
During this period, the amount of Bitcoin held by whales increased from approximately 2.9 million. $BTC Over 3.1 million people $BTC. The last time an accumulation of this size occurred was during the market correction in April 2025, when buying whales absorbed selling pressure and Bitcoin rose from $76,000 to $126,000. CryptoQuant explained that the crypto asset is currently consolidating almost 46% below its recent all-time high. Therefore, some whales may be taking advantage of this opportunity.
