Miners have seen a dramatic change in circumstances since March 2020, going from unprecedented profitability to seeing their margins squeezed.
The dip to $17,600 — 70% below November’s all-time highs for BTC/USD, has hit some players hard, data now shows, with miner wallets sending large amounts of coins to exchanges.
This, CryptoQuant suggests, precedes the final stages of the Bitcoin sell-off more broadly in line with historical precedent.
“Our data demonstrate a miner capitulation event that has occurred, which has typically preceded market bottoms in previous cycles,” Moreno summarized.
Miner sales have been keenly tracked this month, with the @Bitcoin Twitter account even describing the situation as miners “being drained of their coins.”
“For miners, it's time to decide to stay or leave,” CryptoQuant CEO, Ki Young Ju, added in a Twitter thread last week.
The situation is tenuous, but the majority of miners remain active, as witnessed by network fundamentals dropping only slightly from all-time highs of over 30 trillion.
Mixed signals over buyer interest
When it comes to other large BTC holders, however, the picture appears less clear.
Trader and analyst Rekt Capital nonetheless reiterated doubts about the strength of overall buyer volume, arguing that sellers were conversely still directing market movements.
Bitcoin’s 200-week moving average (MA), a key support level during previous bear markets, has yet to see significant interest from buyers despite spot price being around $2,000 below it.
“Current BTC buy-side volume following the extreme sell volume spike is still lower than the 2018 Bear Market buyer follow-through volume levels at the 200-week MA. Let alone March 2020 buy-side follow-through,” he told Twitter followers.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.
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