Ki Young Ju, the Chief Executive Officer of CryptoQuant, has characterized the current Bitcoin market phase as a "massive change of hands," highlighting an unusually intense selling pressure that has stalled the asset's price despite record-breaking institutional and exchange-traded fund demand. He noted that the average cost basis for Bitcoin investors currently sits around $53,000, and while historical bear markets typically conclude only after the price drops below the realized price, the current price action has regressed to levels not seen in over a year, defying expectations given the massive capital inflows.

To illustrate the sheer scale of this distribution, the executive provided striking on-chain metrics revealing that a staggering 1,240,808 Bitcoins have been absorbed by major market players without triggering a corresponding price rally. Specifically, the corporate entity Strategy has accumulated 711,206 BTC since early 2023 while selling a mere 32 BTC, and purchased an additional 650,706 BTC since March 2024, complementing the 509,102 BTC gathered by spot Bitcoin ETFs over the same recent timeframe. For context, Ju emphasized that this absorbed volume represents a massive fraction of the approximately 2.7 million BTC held in crypto exchange reserves and the roughly 1 million BTC estimated to belong to Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto.

This analysis emerges amidst a broader period of market weakness, with CryptoQuant analysts reporting that the proportion of Bitcoin supply currently in loss has climbed to 40.6%, noting that since 2015, major cyclical bottoms have only formed after testing the long-term downward trendline of this indicator. The bearish sentiment is further compounded by the asset slipping out of the world's top-10 largest assets by market capitalization in late May, prompting prominent crypto skeptic Peter Schiff to warn that a bottom has not yet formed and that Bitcoin could potentially plummet below $20,000, even as the asset was trading at $64,148 at the time of the report's publication.

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The material is prepared solely for informational purposes and does not constitute a financial advice or recommendation.