Bitcoin Encounters Resistance at Key Level, Prompting Selling Among Large Holders

The surge in bitcoin's price towards $75,000 is encountering significant resistance, coinciding with steady institutional demand. The recent upward movement has been fueled primarily by macroeconomic factors rather than speculative activity. U.S.-based spot bitcoin ETFs have seen consistent investments this month, including approximately $240 million in a single session following Middle East geopolitical tensions, as reported by market maker Enflux. This investment helped push BTC from around $71,000 to the mid-$70,000 range, despite traditional markets experiencing rising oil prices and shifting interest rate expectations. According to Enflux, this pattern reflects investment allocation rather than chasing momentum. However, as bitcoin's price increases, the market's character is starting to shift. On-chain data suggests that supply is becoming more aggressive as prices approach a key cost-basis level for short-term investors. The so-called realized price for recent buyers, around $76,800, represents the average entry point for traders who accumulated during the last phase of the decline, according to CryptoQuant. In weaker market conditions, this level has often acted as resistance, as investors who were previously at a loss use rallies to exit at breakeven. Notably, the same level capped the bounce in January almost to the dollar before prices reversed towards $60,000. CryptoQuant reported that bitcoin exchange inflows surged to approximately 11,000 BTC per hour, the highest since late December, as prices tested the $75,000 to $76,000 range. At the same time, the average deposit size increased to about 2.25 BTC, the highest daily reading since mid-2024, indicating that larger holders are driving the movement. The share of large transfers jumped from below 10% to above 40% of total inflows within days, a shift that the firm said has historically coincided with increased selling pressure. This sets up a two-sided market. On one hand, ETF flows and macroeconomic tailwinds continue to provide a steady source of demand. On the other hand, large holders appear to be using the rally to reduce their exposure, feeding liquidity into the market as prices approach a widely watched breakeven zone. What emerges is less of a standoff and more of a handoff. Long-term holders appear to be distributing coins directly into ETF demand — the exchange inflows that CryptoQuant flags and the ETF inflows that Enflux tracks are, in effect, two sides of the same transaction, visible in different datasets. Whether this handoff is successful depends on whether the new holders prove to be more resilient than those exiting. This is a late-cycle pattern, and it resolves in one of two ways. The result is a market that can move higher quickly on inflows but struggles to sustain those gains once supply builds. A sustained break above the mid-$70,000s would likely require demand to absorb a growing wave of sell pressure. Failing that, the balance could tilt the other way, leaving bitcoin vulnerable to a pullback towards the low-$70,000s, where the latest leg of the rally began.