Recently, the player behavior of Bitcoin and Ethereum has shown significant differences in on-chain data. With the 'Supply Heatmap' tool, we can more intuitively capture the dynamic trajectories of various player groups' holding changes.
Bitcoin: New buyers are still providing support, a key factor in maintaining the market stability.
From March 2024 to now, each time BTC reaches a new high, it is driven by the funds from 'new buyers', as evidenced by the green section in the first row of the heatmap. Once the activity of new buyers declines, the market often falls into adjustments or even stagnation, as indicated by the blue dashed line marked area in the chart. Therefore, it can be inferred that the activity level of new players almost determines the short-term bullish or bearish tendency of BTC.
(Figure 1)
If we shorten the observation period to the last three months, we can capture emotional fluctuations more accurately. Especially in the April market, new buyers performed prominently in the following four phases:
April 13 to 27: Early stage of market initiation
May 4 to 11: Price surge phase
May 18 to 25: Before breaking the previous high
June 9 to 16: Period of consolidation
(Figure 2)
Although most macro data is not optimistic, such as weak demand, slowing capital inflow, and conservative player sentiment, this period can be termed as a 'stagnation period', but the continuous entry of new buyers has kept the market in a sideways trend, at least avoiding obvious downward risks.
Ethereum: From leading to lagging, the hesitation of faith-based funds exposes risks.
In contrast, the on-chain behavior of ETH players is relatively weaker. In the early stage of the market, the main buying power for ETH came from long-term holders who actively bought during the dip near $1,500. As the market warmed up, aggressive buyers helped push the price to $2,600, after which new buyers gradually joined, and ETH once showed potential to surpass BTC.
(Figure 3)
However, after June 9, the enthusiasm of ETH players plummeted. Whether it is faith-based funds or new buyers, their response to ETH's adjustment has been relatively conservative, failing to continue the previously active on-chain behavior. This situation causes ETH to fall back into a pattern of moving with BTC, and without a clear independent capital push, it is difficult to break through the heavy resistance zone of $2,700-2,800 in the short term, and the 'altcoin season' may also struggle to begin.