Who is selling BTC? Data: Holding Bitcoin

Bitcoin fell 13% from its high, causing panic in the market. However, on-chain data shows that the real selling pressure comes from mid-term holders, not early whales. Tokens that are more than 5 years old continue to grow. This article is derived from an article written by VanEck and compiled, compiled and written by BitPush. (Synopsis: On-chain data analysis: Is it suitable for bitcoin now?) (Background supplement: Arthur Hayes Full text flip: Bitcoin's four-year cycle is dead, the longer it lives, the king) Key points Long-term whales are still held, and tokens older than 5 years continue to grow. The sell-off focused on medium-term holders, not the oldest wallets. The futures market appears to have been cleaned, with funding fees and open interest at oversold levels. Bitcoin (BTC) Investors are terrified Source: Glassnode, as of November 13, 2025. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. ETP Outflows Drive Early Weakness Price action over the past 30 days has been particularly unfriendly to holders, with BTC down 13%, accompanied by a strongly motivated sell-off. Since October 10, 2025, the BTC ETP balance has flowed out of 49.3 thousand BTC, or about -2% of the total assets under management (AUM), as weak holders who bought near the peak price chose to capitulate amid rate cut uncertainty and wavering AI narratives. More worryingly, many blame the price weakness on the early BTC whales. For example, a Satoshi era whale sold $1.5 billion worth of BTC in the week of November 14, 2025, emptying his entire wallet. Many believe that veteran whales usually signal the long-term trend of BTC by buying and selling BTC at key points. As a result, the cryptocurrency community became bearish and the fear/greed index fell to its lowest level since March 2025 at the onset of tariff fears. Smaller whales accumulate over 1-2 years, while the largest whales sell; Near-term net change flat Long-term decrease in whale position, short-term increase Source: Glassnode, as of November 13, 2025. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. It is not intended to be a recommendation to buy or sell any of the securities mentioned herein. Rather than assuming that the recent weakness stemmed from a sell-off by large holders, it is better to take a closer look at the full distribution of flows across groups. The on-chain situation shows a more subtle rotation than a simple “whale sell-off”. If we look at whale positions holding more than 1,000 BTC, it is clear that they have been reducing their BTC exposure since November 2023. In fact, giant whales holding 10K-100K BTC have reduced their supply by -6% and -11% over the past 6 and 12 months, respectively. This supply has been absorbed by the “small fish” holding 100 to 1,000 BTC. These smaller investors have increased their holdings by +9% over the past 6 months and +23% over the past 12 months. For context, BTC itself has risen by about 170% over the past two years. Bitcoin futures (BTC) open interest up +6% in November Source: Glassnode, as of November 13, 2025. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. It is not intended to be a recommendation to buy or sell any of the securities mentioned herein. Short-term whales turn into net buyers Short-term data tells a different story: some whale groups have been accumulating. The group holding 10K–100K BTC has increased their positions by approximately +3%, +2.5% and +84 basis (bps) points over the past 30 days, 60 days and 90 days, respectively. This may reflect a tariff-driven sell-off and subsequent liquidation, which reduced open interest in BTC futures by about 19% in 12 hours and pushed the price down by more than 20%. The oldest BTC whale is holding while medium-term traders are selling Source: Glassnode, as of November 13, 2025. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. It is not intended to be a recommendation to buy or sell any of the securities mentioned herein. Medium-term holders are real sellers However, analyzing “whale data” by holder size alone provides an incomplete picture. This view ignores the rotation of experienced older whales transferring their tokens to new, fledgling holders. To deepen our understanding, we check the Bitcoin balance by “Last active transfer time”, which indicates the time elapsed since the last transfer of the token. The implicit implication of the transfer is that it is likely that these tokens were sold to different holders. Over the past 30 days, selling pressure has focused on the <5-year-old coin group, while older tokens have mostly maintained or increased their holdings. Interestingly, over the past 6 months, ownership has shifted from the (3-5 ) group to the (6-2 years ) group, marking the transfer of funds from medium-term holders to new participants. In older groups, i.e. holders whose last token movement occurred >5 years ago, token turnover remains low relative to other groups. In contrast, the largest churn occurred in tokens whose last move was 3-5 years ago, and the group continued to decline during each study period. Over the past two years, the supply of these tokens has dropped by 32% as these tokens are sent to new addresses. Given that many of these tokens may have accumulated during the downturn of the last Bitcoin cycle, their holders appear to be opportunistic cycle traders rather than long-term investors. At the same time, tokens last moved > 5 years ago saw a net increase of +278K BTC ( ) compared to two years ago. This growth reflects younger tokens aging into the 5-year-old category, rather than re-accumulation, but it still indicates continued belief in long-term whales. While more granular analysis may yield additional insights, the overall trend remains encouraging: holders of the longest line continue to accumulate and hold. BTC futures basis at lowest level since fall 2023 Source: Glassnode, as of November 13, 2025. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. It is not intended to be a recommendation to buy or sell any of the securities mentioned herein. Futures Market Shows Speculative Activity Reset One of the best indicators of speculative sentiment is the annualized basis cost paid by traders willing to go long Bitcoin perpetual futures. Since perpetual contracts are never delivered, their price is consistent with the spot price by charging interest to one party to the transaction. If the perpetual contract price is higher than the spot price, the long party must pay the short party the interest rate related to the margin of the spot/perpetual price difference. Due to the asymmetric upside potential of cryptocurrencies, perpetual contract basis is almost always positive. During periods of low demand for cryptocurrency bulls like BTC, the basis collapses. Recently, we have seen a sharp collapse of open interest in Bitcoin perpetual contracts, down -20% in BTC and -32% in USD terms since October 9, 2025. This partly explains the sharp collapse in funding rates. Of course, if people are bullish on BTC, this rate climbs quickly. Past…