- Falling exchange reserves and the lack of large whales selling were strong positives for bulls
- Long-term holders’ realized price metric revealed a pattern that suggested a swift rally was imminent
Bitcoin [BTC] has traded within a range for nearly ten days. This range formation came alongside falling exchange reserves. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index was at 74 at press time, highlighting greed in the market.
Bitcoin’s Dominance saw a pullback, but it remained within its ascending channel. This meant that the altcoins’ outperformance may have been a short-term phenomenon. BTC still leads the show, with a rising BTC.D seen over the past five days.
At the time of writing, one of many encouraging factors for the bulls was the call options surge, which reflected a bullish directional bias. With whale accumulation also in play, it appeared likely that another BTC rally may be brewing.
Bullish Bitcoin clues, and the importance of $98.8k
Source: CryptoQuant
The data on the flow of Bitcoin from large whales to exchanges showed that on 17 May, 53.7k BTC was accumulated by holders with more than 10k Bitcoin. The large holders have seen negative BTC flows since August – A sign that smart money did not believe a market top was at hand.
While it was not a bullish short-term signal, it indicated that the bullish trend still had plenty of room for expansion. The falling exchange reserves data reinforced this idea, reaching levels not seen since August 2018.
Source: Axel on X
In a post on X, analyst Axel Adler Jr noted that short-sellers have been noticeably more cautious going short in 2025, than they were during the 2021 rally. This was demonstrated by the lack of notable long squeezes in recent months.
Here, it can be inferred that risk-averse bears reflected a generally bullish signal.
Source: CryptoQuant
Finally, in a post on CryptoQuant Insights, user Shayan noted that Bitcoin successfully reclaimed the realized price of the 3-6 month holder cohort. As evidenced in October 2023 and October 2024, this reclaim generally came before a strong rally.
At the same time, it must be noted that the retracement towards this realized price, at $98.8k at press time, was likely to act as a dynamic support.