Bitcoin whales dumping $45 billion worth of positions, analysts say bear market may continue until next spring.

Bitcoin has fallen again, but this time it is not caused by the collapse of leverage triggering market turmoil. Entities holding 1000 to 10,000 bitcoins, known as "super whales," have been selling off, leading to the largest drop in Bitcoin of 7.4%, breaking the $100,000 threshold for the first time since June. Compared to the historical high reached a month ago, the drop has exceeded 20%. In early Asian trading on Wednesday, Bitcoin regained some lost ground, but still failed to stabilize. At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading at $101,800. Unlike the chain liquidation during the crash in October, this decline is led by continuous selling in the spot market. This contrasts with patterns familiar to cryptocurrency traders in recent times - sudden and drastic market fluctuations in the past were usually triggered by futures market liquidation. Markus Thielen, head of 10x Research, stated that in the past month, long-term Bitcoin holders have sold off around 400,000 bitcoins, equivalent to $45 billion in capital outflow, causing a market imbalance in supply and demand. Data from CoinGlass shows that around $2 billion worth of cryptocurrency positions were liquidated in the past 24 hours. In contrast, the forced liquidation scale during the crash in October reached as high as $19 billion, making this scale relatively moderate. The open interest in Bitcoin futures contracts remains low, while options traders are betting on a price decline by executing put options contracts with a target price of $80,000. With leverage levels relatively moderate, market attention has shifted to the long-term holders choosing to sell. Vetle Lunde, director of K33 Research, said, "Over the past month, over 319,000 bitcoins have been reactivated, mainly coins held for 6 to 12 months - indicating a large-scale profit-taking since mid-July. Some reactivations are from internal transfers, but most reflect real selling behavior." Thielen said that if the crash in October was caused by forced selling, this pullback may reflect a more worrying situation: waning market confidence. The imbalance between continuous selling by long-term holders and insufficient new buyers entering the market is intensifying, affecting not only market sentiment but also beginning to dominate market trends. Earlier this year, Thielen observed that entities holding 1,000 to 10,000 bitcoins, known as "super whales," had started selling in large quantities, even as institutional investors tried to absorb this selling pressure. This also explains the sideways movement of Bitcoin this summer. However, since the crash on October 10, overall demand has significantly diminished. "We have broken through some on-chain indicators - many investors are holding positions at a loss and have to liquidate." Overall, the scale of new investments from investors holding 100 to 1,000 bitcoins has decreased significantly. Thielen said, "The whales are not buying at all." Looking ahead, Thielen warned that this selling pressure may continue until the spring of next year. In the bear market from 2021 to 2022, large holders sold over 1 million bitcoins in nearly a year, and Thielen believes a similar scale of selling may be repeated. "If we maintain the current pace, this situation may continue for another six months." He did not predict a catastrophic crash, but he believes there is still room for further decline. "I am not superstitious about market cycles, but I believe the market might consolidate and possibly decline further. My maximum downside target is $85,000."