Bitcoin maxis are about to kick off the altseason as BTC turns institutional

This more muted sell-off is a harbinger of a softer rally once we’re over the halving hump. There’s little doubt that Bitcoin will see the customary sell-off following the halving, and it will certainly reach a new all-time high after. Equally, returns will still look a lot more exciting than they do for, say, traditional equity holders. But don’t expect the more than 600% price increases we saw after the last halving in 2020. Those days are over.

So why is this happening? There are two factors at play here. Firstly, the percentage of long-term Bitcoin holders has reached a record of around 14 million BTC — more than 70% of the total circulating supply of 19,670,043 BTC. Over recent months, record amounts of BTC have been withdrawn from exchanges to cold wallets as more and more holders adopt a “diamond hands” approach.