Whales recently moved huge amounts of Bitcoin. Much of it also went to exchange accounts. On June 6 alone, BTC worth a billion US dollars were reportedly liquidated. This is according to a chart shared on the X platform by Ki Young Ju, founder of the crypto analysis platform CryptoQuant.

#Bitcoin long-term holder whales sold $1.2B in the past 2 weeks, likely through brokers.

ETF netflows are negative with $460M outflows in the same period.

If this ~$1.6B in sell-side liquidity isn't bought OTC, brokers may deposit $BTC to exchanges, impacting the market. pic.twitter.com/oYeKsRqKeF
— Ki Young Ju (@ki_young_ju) June 18, 2024

However, the data only show that coins have flowed from whale wallets to exchange wallets. They may not necessarily have been liquidated there. Moreover, extremely high values like the June 6 record are in all likelihood statistically artificial phenomena that can be explained by measurement errors, for example.

Nevertheless, it seems likely that many large Bitcoin investors are indeed dumping BTC these days. After all, miners are also being forced to liquidate certain parts of their hodl stacks as the halving puts financial pressure on miners. In fact, since July 2022, the amount of coins held by miners has been gradually declining.

"When Bitcoin drops below the cost of production for inefficient miners, they are forced to shut down their machines. They sell their BTC to cover costs and the price goes sideways. This follows every halving like clockwork," writes crypto analyst Cole Garner on the X platform. On the other hand, it should also be noted that BTC miners still hold significant amounts of 1.8 million Bitcoin.

Bitcoin has been moving sideways lately. Since its all-time high on March 14, the number one cryptocurrency has failed to make up any ground - despite halving. Selling pressure from miners and whales could be a possible explanation for this.