BTC Price Slips as Long-Term Bitcoin Holders Begin to Take Profits

Analysts at the on-chain analytics platform CryptoQuant believe it is time to monitor the activity of long-term bitcoin (BTC) holders. This is due to their impact on the price trajectory of the leading cryptocurrency.

According to a report by the pseudonymous analyst Avocado onchain, Binary Coin Days Destroyed (CDD) suggests that long-term BTC holders are beginning to realize profits amid bitcoin’s latest rally.

Long-term Holders Are Taking Profits

CDD tells the average age of coins spent or moved in any transaction by multiplying their number by the days they were held before spending. Binary CDD shows if the movement of the coins is relative to historical spending patterns. This is to say that the metric reveals whether Supply-Adjusted CDD was above or below the wallet’s historical average on any given day.

Binary CDD gives insight into long-term holder spending behavior patterns in the crypto market. This metric is high when long-term BTC holders become active, indicating that long-dormant coins have begun to move. However, the indicator becomes low when long-term holders become inactive.

Notably, Binary CDD spikes when long-term holders start taking profits during bitcoin’s surge to new highs. In the last leg of the 2021 bull run, the 30-day moving average of Binary CDD rose above 0.8 as long-term investors began to actualize profits. Similarly, the metric also climbed past 0.8 when BTC jumped to new highs in March and December 2024.

Bitcoin is Cooling Off

Avocado onchain has disclosed that Binary CDD was rising again alongside bitcoin’s price recovery over the last few days. Currently, the metric hovers around 0.6, indicating that long-term holders are realizing profits. A continuous spike towards and above 0.8 is a sign that this cohort of investors is still offloading their assets, likely to short-term traders.

As predicted by experts, BTC is now cooling off after its recent rally that drove prices into overbought territory on higher time frames. CryptoPotato reported that the asset showed signs of exhaustion after climbing to a key resistance level close to $106,000.

At the time of writing, the leading crypto asset was changing hands around $102,390, having fallen almost 3% from the $105,300 range. Regardless of the brief correction, analysts say Bitcoin metrics have aligned for an incoming sustained bull run.