Bitcoin has been falling again — but this time, it’s not leverage breaking the market.
The original cryptocurrency fell as much as 7.4 per cent to dip below the $100,000 mark for the first time since June. That’s down more than 20 per cent from a record high reached a month ago. Bitcoin pared losses on Wednesday morning in Asia, but is still struggling for a sure footing.
Unlike the cascading wipe-outs that triggered the October crash, the current slide has been led by a steady drumbeat of selling in the spot market. That marks a shift from the pattern crypto traders have come to expect lately, where sudden bursts of volatility are typically driven by liquidations in futures markets.
Long-time Bitcoin holders have offloaded around 400,000 Bitcoin over the past month, an exodus of about $45 billion that’s left the market unbalanced, according to Markus Thielen, head of 10x Research.
Meanwhile, roughly $2 billion in crypto positions were liquidated over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGlass — modest compared to the $19 billion in forced unwindings that punctuated last month’s crash. Open interest in Bitcoin futures remains subdued, and options traders have been placing downside bets through put contracts targeting the $80,000 level.
With leverage relatively muted, attention has turned to the long-time holders who are choosing to sell.
“Over 319,000 Bitcoin has been reactivated in the past month, mainly from coins held for six to 12 months — suggesting significant profit-taking since mid-July,” said Vetle Lunde, head of research at K33. “While some reactivation stems from internal transfers, much reflects real selling.”
If October’s crash was about forced selling, the current drawdown may reflect something more sobering: conviction eroding. According to Thielen, a growing imbalance between long-time holders unloading Bitcoin and new buyers stepping in is beginning to shape market direction — not just sentiment.
Earlier this year, Thielen observed that “mega whales” — entities holding between 1,000 Bitcoin and 10,000 Bitcoin — began offloading large volumes, even as institutional players tried to absorb the supply. That helped explain Bitcoin’s choppy, sideways movement during the summer. But since the October 10 crash, Thielen says, broader demand has faded. “We broke through some on-chain indicators — people are underwater, they need to close their positions,” he said.
All told, accumulation by parties holding between 100 Bitcoin and 1,000 Bitcoin has dropped sharply. “The whales are just not buying,” he said.
Looking ahead, Thielen warns the unwind could last well into next spring. In the 2021–2022 bear market, more than one million Bitcoin were sold by large holders over almost a year — a scale Thielen believes may repeat. “If this is a similar pace,” he said, “we could see this situation going on for another six months.”
He’s not calling for a catastrophic plunge but sees room for further declines. “I am not a believer in the cycle,” Thielen said, “but I would assume that we sort of consolidate and potentially drift even a bit lower from here. $85,000 is my maximum downside target.”
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Published on November 5, 2025