More than two months after the token hit an all-time high of over $126,000, Bitcoin has fallen nearly 30% and is struggling to find support. One reason: the old holders haven’t stopped selling. New blockchain data shows that coins held for years are being divested at some of the fastest rates in recent history, just as the market’s ability to absorb them diminishes.
According to a report from K33 Research, the amount of Bitcoin that has remained immobile for at least two years has fallen by 1.6 million coins since the beginning of 2023, which is worth approximately $140 billion. That indicates continued selling by long-term owners.
In 2025 alone, nearly $300 billion worth of Bitcoin, which had been dormant for more than a year, has returned to circulation. CryptoQuant, a blockchain analytics company, reported that the past 30 days saw one of the heaviest long-term holder pullouts in more than five years.
“The market is experiencing a slow bleed characterized by steady short-term selling in limited liquidity, causing a sharp decline that is more difficult to reverse than leverage-induced capitulation events,” said Chris Newhouse, research director at Ergonia, a firm specializing in decentralized finance.
For much of the past year, that sales was absorbed by a surge in demand from newly launched exchange-traded funds and crypto investment firms. But that question has disappeared. ETF flows have turned negative. Derivatives volumes have fallen. And retail participation has thinned out. The same offer now ends up in a weaker market with fewer active buyers.
The pressure has been at its most acute since October 10, when US$19 billion in liquidations were recorded following unexpected comments on punitive tariffs by US President Donald Trump. That was the largest single-day leverage ever in crypto history. Traders have withdrawn from the derivatives markets since the crash, with little sign of recovery in sight.
After a brief jump to $90,000 on Wednesday, which traders attributed to a series of liquidations of short positions, Bitcoin quickly resumed its decline. The native cryptocurrency fell to the bottom of its trading range since the October crash, falling as much as 2.8% to $85,278. It was trading just above $86,000 at 10 a.m. in Singapore on Thursday.
“Unlike previous cycles, these reactivations are not driven by altcoin trading or protocol incentives, but by deep US ETF liquidity and demand for government bonds, allowing OG holders to realize gains at six-figure prices and significantly reduce ownership concentration,” said K33 Senior Analyst Vetle Lunde, referring to the acronym for “original gangster,” the term used by crypto enthusiasts to describe early adopters and investors. The amount we saw this year and last year “represents the second and third largest long-term supply reactivations in Bitcoin history, which was only surpassed in 2017.”
Open interest, the number of contracts outstanding, for both Bitcoin options and perpetual futures, remains well below levels before the October crash, according to data from Coinglass. The decline indicates that most traders are still on the sidelines as such markets make up the majority of crypto trading volumes. At the same time, so-called basis trading – a way to profit from price differences between spot and futures markets – has become unprofitable for hedge funds.
However, Lunde said the selling of Bitcoin legacy holders may be coming to an end as the reactivation approaches a threshold based on observations of historical onchain flows.
“Looking ahead, sell-side pressure from long-term holders appears to be getting closer to saturation, with around 20% of BTC supply having been reactivated over the past two years,” Lunde wrote. “OG sales are expected to decline through 2026, allowing supply to rise in two years as BTC transitions to net buy-side demand amid deeper institutional integration.”
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Published on December 18, 2025
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