Whales who bought Bitcoin at $10 are now slowing the rally

As the period of bearishness across the cryptocurrency market continues, in the case of Bitcoin (BTC), old whales, who bought up the flagship decentralized finance (DeFi) asset back when it traded at a mere $10, might be to blame.

Indeed, as crypto expert Willy Woo pointed out, the BTC supply is concentrated around original whales who peaked their holdings in 2011, having bought their Bitcoin at $10 or lower, and now it takes $110,000 or more of new capital to absorb each BTC they sell, according to the analysis he shared on August 25.

More specifically, he explained that this differential in cost basis, the supply held by the OG whales, and their selling rate had a massive impact on how much new capital is necessary to enter the market, so the price could grow. As the analyst added:

“You can look at this as BTC going through growing pains until these 10,000x gain investors are absorbed.”

Who is buying up BTC?

Interestingly, onchain data has shown that other Bitcoin whales, as well as sharks, have scooped up 20,000 BTC throughout the recent dip, suggesting significant optimism among this particular crowd and hinting at the possible direction of the coin’s future movements.

Additionally, there’s the institutional interest to take into account, which Michael Saylor’s Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) has demonstrated by boosting its coffers to 629,376 BTC.

Meanwhile, technical charts are indicating that Bitcoin needs to hold $112,000 for a rebound back to $120,000, as professional crypto trader Ali Martinez has noted recently, but so far, the maiden crypto asset is struggling below this important price level.

As it happens, BTC is currently changing hands at the price of $111,748, indicating a decline of 2.67% on the day, having dropped 2.92% across the past week, and accumulating a dip of 4.95% on its monthly chart, according to the latest CoinMarketCap data.

Earlier, Martinez identified three major support zones for Bitcoin, and it has already lost one – $112,800, and the next two are standing at $91,400 and $70,000, where BTC could find bottom before it would start its recovery towards new all-time highs (ATHs).