Few buyers, even fewer sellers
A year after the ATH, BTC looks to have bottomed early. Sellers are exhausted, long-term holders are in control and boring price action hides a buoyant drift. We see a buyers' market and stay fully allocated.
Preview
Bitcoin is consolidating for a fourteenth straight day, capped by the yearly open at $87,500. Still, Q3 closed at $83,563 as a bullish engulfing candle, reclaiming the $82k level lost in January. On September 30, 7-day volatility hit a 3-year low, and spot volumes are well below yearly averages. Derivatives are trading idly, treasury companies are passive, ETF flows have softened and options show dead-neutral sentiment. BTC is up nearly 50% from its lows, but there are few buyers and even fewer sellers. That makes for boring price action, but also a buoyant drift.In our view, sell-side exhaustion is still the most important bitcoin-specific price factor. Since January 2024, 6.2 million BTC that had sat dormant for 2+ years have moved. That's the largest 3-year activation of long-term supply on record, well above the 5.3 million from November 2016 to 2019. These coins changed hands near current prices and now sit with a hardened cohort that held through the 50% drawdown of 2026. They bought the top, held through the bottom and have little reason to sell at breakeven. Macro is the near-term risk: the 10y hit 5.35% yesterday and the 3
