Bitcoin price recorded a new all-time high of $69,000 on March 5; however, the time above $69,000 was short-lived as the price experienced a flash crash and briefly fell below $60,000. The price crash was attributed to heavy selling from hodlers as several whales and dormant accounts woke up to take profits.
According to data from CryptoQuant, crypto exchanges witnessed a three-day streak of BTC inflows worth $525 million, suggesting traders were moving their BTC from cold storage onto exchanges to take profit in anticipation of the ATH.
One case that intrigued the crypto community was a dormant whale that awoke after 14 years to deposit 1,000 BTC ($67.1 million) to Coinbase when the BTC price was trading at $67,116. The whale mined this Bitcoin in 2010 when the price was below $0.28, suggesting that the whale has made more than $60 million in profit.
While Bitcoin hodlers took profit on their holdings, leverage traders were less lucky with more than $1 billion in leveraged positions liquidated due to price volatility, making it the largest liquidation day since the previous cycle top.
The Bitcoin binary spending indicator also indicates that several Bitcoin hodlers made a profit as the BTC price hit $69,000. The binary spending indicator shows the movement of BTC funds over the years based on their supply timeline.
Bitcoin also recorded the highest selling volume on Coinbase on a daily candle since the FTX crash, indicating heavy selling.
Despite the recent selling and price flash crash, not everyone wants to sell. According to CryptoQuant data, 45% of Bitcoin hasn’t moved in over three years, while 11% has not been touched for five to seven years.
Crypto analysts deemed the recent flash crash healthy for the market as it wiped out high volatility and reset the high funding rates. The funding rate represents the difference between the futures and spot markets. High funding rates indicate over-optimism in the market dominated by long traders.
Bitcoin’s price has also recovered above $66,000 within 24 hours, only 4% away from its all-time high.
Source : Cointelegraph by Prashant Jha / Mar 6, 2024