Key Takeaways
- Long-term whales are still holding, with 5+ year coin age tokens continuing to grow.
- Selling is concentrated in mid-term holders, not the oldest wallets.
- Futures market appears to have been washed out, with funding rates and open interest at oversold levels.
- Bitcoin (BTC) investors are feeling fearful.
Early Weakness Driven by ETP Outflows
The past 30-day price action has been particularly unfriendly to holders, with BTC down 13% accompanied by motivated selling.
Since October 10, 2025, BTC ETP balances have seen outflows of 49.3K BTC, or roughly -2% of total assets under management (AUM), as weak hands who bought near price peaks have capitulated amidst rate cut uncertainty and an AI narrative shakeout. More concerningly, many have blamed the price weakness on early BTC whales. For example, a "Satoshi-era" whale sold $1.5B worth of BTC in the week of November 14, 2025, liquidating his entire wallet. Many argue that veteran whales often foreshadow the long-term path of BTC by buying and selling BTC at pivotal points. As a result, the crypto community has become bearish, with the fear/greed index falling to its lowest levels since March 2025 at the start of tariff panics.
Long-Term Decrease, Short-Term Increase in Whale Positions
Rather than assume recent weakness stemmed from selling by large holders, it is better to inspect the full distribution of flows across cohorts. On-chain reveals a more nuanced rotation than simple “whale selling.” If we look at whale holdings above 1,000 BTC, it is clear they have been reducing their BTC exposure since November 2023. In fact, whales holding 10K–100K BTC have decreased supply by -6% and -11% over the past 6 months and 12 months, respectively. This supply has been absorbed by the “small fish” holding between 100 to 1,000 BTC. These smaller investors have increased their holdings by +9% and +23% over the past 6 months and 12 months, respectively. For background context, BTC itself is up roughly 170% over the past two years.
Short-Term Whales Turn Net Buyers
Short-term data tells a different story: some whale cohorts have been accumulating. The cohort holding 10K–100K BTC have increased their holdings by roughly +3%, +2.5%, and +84 basis points (bps) over the past 30 days, 60 days, and 90 days, respectively. This may reflect the tariff-driven selling and subsequent liquidation that reduced BTC futures open interest by roughly 19% in 12 hours and pushed prices down over 20%.
Mid-Term Holders are the Real Sellers
However, analyzing “whale data” solely by holder size provides an incomplete picture. This view ignores the rotation phenomenon where veteran older whales transfer their tokens to new, fledgling holders. To deepen our understanding, we examine bitcoin balances by “Last Active Transfer Time,” which indicates how long it has been since the tokens were last transferred. The implied meaning of a transfer is that these tokens were most likely sold to a different holder. Over the past 30 days, selling pressure has been concentrated in the <5-year cohort, while older tokens have mostly maintained or increased their holdings. Interestingly, over the past 6 months, ownership has rotated from the (3-5yr) cohort to the (6mo-2yr) cohort, marking a transfer of funds from midterm holders to new entrants. In the older cohorts, i.e., those whose tokens last moved >5 years ago, token turnover has remained comparatively low relative to other cohorts. In contrast, the largest drain has been in tokens whose last move was 3-5 years ago, which have steadily declined in each period studied. The supply of these tokens is down 32% over the past two years as these tokens have been sent to new addresses. Given that many of these tokens were likely accumulated during the downturn of the previous bitcoin cycle, their holders appear to be opportunistic cyclical traders rather than long-term investors. At the same time, tokens whose last move was >5 years ago have net increased by +278K BTC (vs. two years ago). This growth reflects younger tokens aging into the 5+ year category rather than re-accumulation, but it still points to continued conviction among long-term whales.
Futures Market Suggests Speculative Reset
One of the best gauges of speculative sentiment is the annualized basis cost that traders willing to go long bitcoin perpetual futures are paying. Since perpetual contracts never settle, their prices are kept in line with spot prices by charging an interest rate to one side of the trade. If the perpetual contract price is higher than the spot price, the long side must pay the short side an interest rate related to the size of the spot/perpetual price differential. Given the asymmetric upside potential of crypto, the basis is almost always positive. In times of lower demand for crypto longs like BTC, the basis collapses. Recently, we have seen a sharp collapse in bitcoin perpetual contract open interest, down -20% denominated in BTC and -32% denominated in USD since October 9, 2025. This partly explains the sharp collapse in funding rates. Of course, if people were bullish on BTC, this rate would quickly spike. The magnitude of the current collapse in funding rates, combined with the widespread liquidation of perpetual contract open interest, suggests that the market has been oversold.
Summary
The Bitcoin chain data as of mid-November 2025 indicates a shift in token ownership from mid-term holders to new entrants, with long-term whales continuing to hold Bitcoin. The futures market suggests a speculative reset, and other metrics indicate that the market may be oversold. Investors should exercise caution and conduct their own research before making any investment decisions.
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