Daily Crypto Deep Dive: Who Is Actually Selling Bitcoin? Why ETF Billions Aren’t Sending BTC Higher

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Welcome back to the Daily Crypto Deep Dive. There is something happening in Bitcoin right now that, on the surface, does not make much sense. Bitcoin is trading around $83,000. It has fallen back from above $87,000.

And yet, at exactly the same time, some absolutely enormous buyers have been entering the market. Between September the 21st and September the 25th, US-spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded approximately $2.39 billion of net inflows. At prices around the mid $80,000, that is the equivalent value of roughly 28,000 Bitcoin. Strategy has just announced another purchase of 1,665 Bitcoin for $142.7 million, taking its total holdings to an astonishing 847,666 BTC.

So here's the question. If billions of dollars are coming into the ETFs, Strategy is still buying, and Bitcoin continues disappearing into long-term custody, then who the hell is selling enough Bitcoin to stop the price going up?

And after digging through the data, I think we can actually answer it. Before we get into it, Kraken is the exchange we use and trust ourselves. If you're looking for somewhere to buy or trade crypto, using our Kraken link helps support Crypto News Today and allows us to keep making these episodes without stuffing the show with adverts. As always, nothing in this episode is financial advice. And if you're already sorted for an exchange, the other completely free way you can help us is by dropping the podcast a five-star rating on Spotify. Now back to Bitcoin. The first thing we need to understand is something that causes enormous confusion in crypto.

Bitcoin does not need somebody to sell billions of dollars worth of coins all at once for the price to fall. The price you see on your screen is essentially the price at which the next marginal buyer and seller agree to transact. If buyers suddenly become less aggressive and start placing their bids lower, sellers have to travel down through that order book to find them. Price falls even if the overwhelming majority of Bitcoin holders haven't sold a single Satoshi. And that is important today because the macroeconomic environment has suddenly become considerably more hostile. US 10-year Treasury yields have pushed above 5.2%, reaching levels not seen since 2007

Oil has remained above $100 a barrel amid the Middle East conflict, increasing inflation concerns, and markets are once again pricing the possibility of further Federal Reserve tightening.

Those forces have hit stocks, gold and other assets alongside Bitcoin. Think about what a Treasury yield above 5% actually means. An investor can earn more than 5% from US government debt without taking Bitcoin's volatility. Bitcoin doesn't generate a coupon or dividend. Therefore, as the risk-free rate rises, the hurdle Bitcoin has to clear becomes higher. Some investors don't necessarily dump Bitcoin. They simply become less willing to chase it at $87,000.

That's our first answer. Part of this decline isn't caused by some mysterious gigantic seller. It's caused by buyers becoming more price-sensitive. But there are real sellers as well. And one group stands out. Bitcoin Miners CryptoQuant data showed that on September 21, miner-linked wallets transferred 19,866 BTC to Binance, the largest miner-to-Binance flow since August 25, when the figure exceeded 25,000 BTC.

At roughly $85,000 per Bitcoin, 19,866 BTC represents around $1.7 billion worth of Bitcoin potentially becoming available to the market. Now we need to be very careful here. A transfer to Binance does not prove that all 19,866 BTC were sold. Wallet movements can occur for several reasons. But moving Bitcoin from miner-controlled wallets onto an exchange makes those coins considerably more available for sale. And miners have a very obvious reason to sell. Mining Bitcoin is a business. Electricity bills arrive, employees need paying, debt has to be serviced, mining machines need replacing, data centers require investment, and increasingly, some mining companies are pouring capital into the enormous opportunity created by AI computing. They cannot pay those bills in Bitcoin. So when Bitcoin rallies from around $60,000 to the mid $80,000, miners suddenly have an opportunity to monetize part of their inventory at dramatically better prices. But here's where this becomes fascinating. Nearly 20,000 miner-linked Bitcoin moved to Binance, and Bitcoin initially held around $85,400.

That is not evidence of a weak market. That's evidence of extraordinary absorption. The buyers were effectively standing underneath that supply and taking it. And those buyers weren't just the ETFs. There is another seller in this market. People who bought Bitcoin lowered down.

Glassnode found that almost all short-term holders had returned to profit during the recent rally. That matters because short-term holders are historically much more sensitive to price movements than someone who bought Bitcoin years ago and intends to hold it for another decade.

Imagine you bought Bitcoin at $65,000 during the fear earlier this year. Suddenly it's $85,000.