Today, the cryptocurrency market is experiencing a sell-off primarily due to several overlapping factors:
---$BTC
🐋 1. Activity of the "sleeping whale"
A wallet from 2011, which had been inactive for 14 years, confirmed a massive transfer of around 8.7 billion USD in BTC, triggering fears of a potential dump of a large amount of BTC.
For the market, this is typically a signal of upcoming profit-taking and sell-offs, which was confirmed by cascading liquidations of leveraged positions.
---$XRP
📅 2. Expiring options worth ~3.6 billion USD
Such a level of expiring options increases volatility and often leads to prior profit-taking, which intensifies price pullbacks.
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🏛 3. Regulators and policy (the so-called "crypto week")
The U.S. Congress blocked key reforms: GENIUS Act (stablecoins), Clarity Act (regulators), and other bills.
The lack of progress on expected regulations lowers investor sentiment and prompts the sell-off of "buy the rumor, sell the news."
---$SOL
📉 4. Profit-taking after previous increases
After reaching record highs (BTC ~123,200 USD), many investors locked in profits, which typically leads to market correction – even a 3–5% drop.
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🌍 Additional factors
Influx of BTC to exchanges – data from July 15 indicates that over 9.4 billion USD in BTC was transferred to exchanges, which usually precedes a sell-off.
Broader macroeconomic context – global uncertainty and U.S. fiscal policy also affect risk sentiment, weakening the cryptocurrency market.
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🔍 Summary
The correlation between whale transfers, option expirations, regulatory mismatches in Congress, and profit-taking results in noticeable declines in BTC (around -2%) and ETH today, despite the long-term trend remaining bullish.
