Bitcoin’s 2025 Volume Peaks Have Been the Key Buy/Sell Signals

Bitcoin’s two biggest trading volume spikes of 2025 have turned out to be near-perfect signals for traders, according to fresh data from behavioral analytics platform Santiment.

The firm shared on X that the cryptocurrency’s heaviest weekly volume clusters over the past six months lined up with a market bottom and a new all-time high, suggesting that watching volume extremes has once again been a profitable contrarian strategy.

Trading Volumes Flagged the Bottom and the Top

Santiment’s chart highlighted two defining moments. One was an $84.08 billion trading volume burst during the tariff-driven dip in April that marked the “bottom signal,” with the second being a much larger $90.90 billion spike in recent weeks that coincided with Bitcoin hitting a new all-time high above $124,000.

According to the analytics firm, the first flagged a sharp selloff that provided bargain entry points for investors, while the second was a top signal, coming in sync with intense profit-taking as BTC set its record high.

“The two largest volume spikes from Bitcoin signaled the optimal time to buy (as prices were falling) and sell (as prices peaked to a new ATH),” noted Santiment.

Its assessment comes a couple of days after Glassnode shared an update showing that “First Buyers” had added 50,000 BTC to their holdings in five days, while so-called “Conviction Buyers” also accumulated, albeit more cautiously.

Meanwhile, “Loss Sellers” had increased by nearly 38%, reflecting capitulation from weaker hands, with profit-takers expanding their take to the highest level seen this year. Indeed, on August 20, the platform reported that long-term holders had booked $2.8 billion in profits across Bitcoin, Ethereum (ETH), XRP, and Solana (SOL) as the market cooled.

BTC led the rush, realizing its largest profit-taking event since December 2024, when investors pocketed $1.5 billion on July 18. That wave of exits helped push the OG crypto under $113,000 earlier this week, dragging other majors lower and erasing more than $70 billion in total market value overnight.

Adding to the bearish mood, Santiment’s metrics also showed that crowd sentiment on social platforms had swung negative, registering the most pessimism since June.

Price Action

Meanwhile, at the market, Bitcoin was trading at $113,705 at the time of this writing. The price reflects an almost 7% dip over the past week, a relatively poor performance compared to the broader crypto market, which shed 3.5% in the same period.

Furthermore, the asset slipped 3.1% in the last 30 days, although it remains up nearly 91% year-over-year.