Bitcoin’s price took a steep tumble early this week, driving over $300 million in crypto market liquidations in a single day. Why the sudden volatility?
Gayatri Choudhury, Quantitative Research Analyst at Bitwise, says there have been two key drivers of the selloff – and neither relates to the Bitcoin ETFs.
Miners Are Dumping
The analyst first noted on Tuesday that the activity of Bitcoin miners – a cohort “often overlooked” by market watchers. Since the fourth Bitcoin halving in April, the network’s miners have been consistently selling their BTC amid much lower revenues and historically high competition from global competitors.
“On June 9, >3000 BTC were transferred from mining pools to Binance, marking a two-month peak,” Choudhury said. Citing a CryptoQuant dashboard, the analyst noted that heavy selloffs of the sort tend to correlate with downward price action, such as in mid April directly after the halving, or in late May.
CryptoQuant published a report earlier this month addressing the aggressive minder selloff, crediting it largely to Marathon Digital (MARA) – the largest publicly traded mining firm. The company offloaded 1400 BTC at the time throughout June, representing 8% of its total BTC holdings.
Both Bitwise and CryptoQuant also noted that miners sold 1200 BTC via OTC desks on June 10 – their highest daily volume since March. As for regular exchanges, Choudry said over $4.5 billion in assets moved from miner balances to exchanges in June.
Regarding motivations for their sales, Choudry highlighted miners’ tight profit margins since the halving. “Average miner revenue per terahash of energy invested in securing the network has dropped by 56% since the halving,” she said.
Mt. Gox Fears
Adding to market concerns was an announcement on Monday from Mt. Gox confirming that it would finally repay customers their long-lost Bitcoin in July after ten years of dormancy. The exchange holds over 141,000 BTC worth more than $8.5 billion, scaring investors into expecting an abrupt wave of BTC sell pressure.
“The going may seem tough right now, but remember that just a year ago Bitcoin was trading at $30,000. A year before that? $10,000,” concluded Choudhury.
While the bearish effect of Mt. Gox sell pressure are yet to be seen, crypto investors are currently looking forward to the launch of Ethereum ETFs in the United States in the same month. Analysts at K33 Research believe the ETFs will haul $4 billion in their first five months on the market.
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