With spot ETF demand turning into continuing outflows and Michael Saylor's Strategy likely turning into a net seller of bitcoin, there appears to be no sizable buyers of BTC at the moment.
A steady drift lower throughout the U.S. morning hours has brought bitcoin to the cusp of falling through $58,000 for the first time since September 2024.
Meanwhile, the level of cope among the bulls is ramping to record levels.
"82% of Bitcoin is in cold storage," wrote MartyParty on X hours ago. "The dollar price is being negotiated with no supply/demand dynamics, just manipulation via unregulated derivatives," he continued.
"Centralized crypto exchanges are beyond corrupt. Nobody is selling the asset except the exchange to themselves through wash trading."
Substitute "gold" for "bitcoin," and you will have the exact same argument made by goldbugs for decades, as that asset either flatlined or went down.
As always, prices are set at the margin. The amount of bitcoin in cold storage (or gold in central bank vaults) will have little to do with it.
The crypto market maker pointed to washed-out sentiment, rising supply held at a loss and bitcoin’s 200-week moving average as signs of capitulation. The missing piece, though, is buying pressure.
Bitcoin has been an “escape valve for excess liquidity,” and that liquidity hasn’t been turning. Exchange-traded funds are seeing large outflows, while over-the-counter demand remains subdued amid the AI trade.
“Seasonality doesn't help. The market has never really bottomed in summer, and accumulation on thin summer volume is not really expected to happen,” Wintermute’s Jasper De Maere wrote. “The more likely shape is some pain into September or October, then a potential recovery depending on how macro resolves.”
The next test comes with Thursday's U.S. jobs data, whether bitcoin holds long-term support, how STRC trades into the new framework and whether AI cools enough for liquidity to rotate back into crypto.
For now, it's looking like yesterday's double-digit percentage surges in Strategy's common stock, MSTR, and high-yielding preferred stock, STRC, were just dead cat bounces.
Source
This article is syndicated for educational reading. For the latest updates, visit the original publisher.
Read on coindesk.com
