Bitcoin is drying up and new money is somewhere else

Bitcoin (BTC) surged marginally on Friday morning after remaining flat over the week due to rising fears of a broader Middle East conflict. This calm has confused the traders, suggesting either an underlying strength or a position on a fault line.

Bitcoin has printed green on the 7-day time frame despite being down by just 0.23% over the last 30 days. Analyst suggests that low volatility, tight price action, and fading retail interest might mean that whales are now settling down the tone.

Retail out, whales in

According to Santiment data, Bitcoin’s elite and mortal wallets are moving in two different directions as the biggest crypto hovered around the $104k-$105 zone. It highlighted that the market added 231 wallets holding more than 10 BTC in the last days (approx. 0.15% surge).

On the other hand, wallets holding 0.001 to 10 Bitcoins saw a drop of around 37,465 wallets over the 10 days. Data mentioned that when large wallets accumulate and retail investors loses confidence, it leads to a historically known combination for bullish momentum to return to the crypto markets.

CryptoQuant’s data reported that short-term holders now have 4.5 million BTC. It has been down by 0.8 million since 27 May. It added that demand momentum has dropped to 2 million BTC, which is said to be the worst on record. This suggests that new money is drying up in Bitcoin.

New money is drying up in Bitcoin.

Short-term holders now hold 4.5M BTC, down 0.8M since 27 May.

Demand momentum sinks to –2M BTC, the worst on record. pic.twitter.com/ollWBXHdll

— CryptoQuant.com (@cryptoquant_com) June 20, 2025

Spot ETF demand is still rising, but lagging far behind trend lines. Despite hitting straight 9 days of inflows, the influx has dropped by almost 60% since April. US Spot BTC ETFs have recorded an inflow of $1.02 billion last week and $1.39 billion before the prior week.

Big transfers dominate Bitcoin$BTC

Glassnode data hints that beneath Bitcoin’s strong holding over $100k