BTC Price Tumbles Below Important Support Level: Are Whales Realizing Profits?

Following a couple of unsuccessful attempts to decisively reclaim $98,000 and potentially head toward $100,000, BTC’s price tumbled in the past few hours to under $95,000.

This adverse move came amid reports that large bitcoin whales have deposited significant amounts of the asset to Binance, potentially to realize some profits. However, there’s some good news as well.

Whales Selling?

Large crypto investors, known as whales, are fundamental to the underlying assets’ price movements due to their ability to purchase or offload substantial amounts in a short time. As such, several on-chain analytics platforms are observing many of their actions to possibly predict a notable price movement in either direction depending on whether they buy or sell.

Lookonchain outlined a recent worrying move from a ‘giant’ whale that had accumulated 11,657 BTC (valued at over $780 million) from March 14 until October 31 at an average price of $66,953. With the cryptocurrency skyrocketing by about 50% from their average entry price, the anonymous whale deposited 1,000 BTC to Binance earlier today, potentially with the intention of selling and realizing some profits.

A giant whale deposited 1000 $BTC($97.5M) to #Binance in the past 4 hours!

This whale has accumulated 11,657 $BTC($780.5M) from #Binance between Mar 14 and Oct 31 at an average price of $66,953.https://t.co/WYPGmoZcB0 pic.twitter.com/S2BCAyYVn2

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) December 2, 2024

In the following hours, BTC’s price slumped from over $98,000 to under $95,000 before recovering slightly to just over the latter.

Despite its minor bounce-off, the cryptocurrency still trades below $96,175, which popular analyst Ali outlined as a significant level that has to endure for the asset to continue its trajectory toward $100,000 and beyond. This is because over a million bitcoin addresses have accumulated more than 950,000 BTC at that average price, effectively turning it into a strong support.

As long as #Bitcoin $BTC holds above $96,175, the odds favor the bulls! pic.twitter.com/18097DlAPF

— Ali (@ali_charts) December 1, 2024

No Need to Panic, Yet?

Although BTC has dumped below the crucial $96,175 line, Glassnode’s Rafael said there’s still no need to panic, at least according to the relative unrealized profit metric. When it goes above 0.9, it shows when the market is overheated due to the large number of investors sitting on paper gains. Historically, such a number has resulted in immediate price corrections for the asset, as seen in the chart below.

Currently, though, the metric is at 0.74, which is under the overheated levels seen in previous cycles. Consequently, Rafael concluded that “there’s room to run.”

The relative unrealized profit of #bitcoin long-term holders currently sitting at 0.74, well below the overheated levels seen in previous cycles—there’s room to run.

Watching this closely as we approach 0.9 and beyond.https://t.co/1fFjXLgXJW pic.twitter.com/0jdQUHIyAX

— Rafael (@n3ocortex) December 1, 2024