Billions in Bitcoin Sold on Exchanges as Liquidations Top $500 Million

Analysts warned that large scale Bitcoin holders moved billions in Bitcoin to exchanges early Friday morning.

Popular CryptoQuant analyst Maartunn warned on X that crypto financial services firm Galaxy Digital shifted $3.7 billion worth of Bitcoin early this morning.

He said of the 35,568 BTC that had been moved to exchanges in the past 10 hours, 26,100 worth of Bitcoin—including a portion moved by Galaxy—was moved by short-term holders and sold at a loss.

It’s important to mention that Galaxy oversees asset management and custody on behalf of clients, so it wasn’t necessarily moving its own funds to exchanges.

Regardless of whose BTC got moved to exchanges, the impact has been severe, Maartuun wrote.

“Selling pressure is mounting—and it’s hitting Bitcoin hard,” he said, adding that BTC open interest has increased by $3.8 billion.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin has slid 1.8% to $116,365. That amounts to a small rebound from the $115,000 it saw early Friday morning. But the fact remains that a whopping $131.6 billion worth of Bitcoin has changed hands in the past 24 hours, marking a 37% increase in trading volume, according to crypto analytics platform Coinglass.

And BRN Lead Research Analyst Valentin Fournier noted that more than half a billion worth of options positions have been liquidated in the past day. At the time of writing, the total has climbed to $531 million—$376 million of it long positions, or traders who were optimistically betting that prices would go up.

“This flush has reset overleveraged long positions, creating a healthier market foundation,” he wrote in a note shared with Decrypt. “Notably, short open interest now exceeds $2.8 billion, setting up a potential short squeeze when Bitcoin regains upward momentum.”

The sudden selling pressure hasn’t been enough to drop investors into fear mode, though.

The Crypto Fear & Greed Index still sits at 70, only having lost 1 point since yesterday.  But Myriad Market users don’t think it’ll climb much higher before the end of the month. Only 38% of Myriad users think it’ll manage to reach 72 before July 29.

(Disclosure: Myriad is a prediction market and engagement platform developed by Dastan, parent company of an editorially independent Decrypt.)

Bitcoin mostly traded sideways this week, despite a midweek rout that curtailed a rally for altcoins XRP and Solana. Institutional investors had started to turn the tide, logging net deposits of $226 million into Bitcoin ETFs Thursday, according to Farside Investors.

That uptick saved the funds from a week in the red. But the funds are still trending down for the week. Traders have withdrawn a total of $285 million from the BTC funds Monday through Wednesday.