For much of this month, Bitcoin trades around $60,000. It’s completely banal.
What’s interesting is the growing division of coin ownership that could shape what happens next.
Data from Santiment shows that the number of wallets holding less than 0.1 BTC, a level typically associated with retail investors, has increased by 2.5% since the largest cryptocurrency hit an all-time high in October. This growth has pushed the supply share of so-called shrimp to its highest level since mid-2024.
In practice, however, it is the largest holders, known as whales and sharks, who tend to set the tone for price direction. These investors, whose portfolios held between 10 and 10,000 BTC, took the opposite path, losing around 0.8%.
This is the kind of division that tends to produce frustratingly unstable price action rather than clear-cut trends.
Retail provides a floor and can trigger short-term momentum. Rallies that last require bigger players, willing to buy whatever is on offer.
The divergence is particularly notable because the situation was different just a few weeks ago.
After Bitcoin hit $60,000 on February 5 – a drop of more than 50% from its October high – Glassnode’s accumulation trend score climbed to 0.68, the strongest broad-based reading since late November, as CoinDesk reported earlier in the month.
Glassnode’s metric measures the relative strength of accumulation for different wallet sizes by taking into account both the size of the entity and the amount of BTC accumulated over the last 15 days. A score closer to 1 indicates accumulation, while a score closer to 0 indicates distribution.
During the flash, the 10-100 BTC cohort were the most aggressive buyers, and the data suggested the market was moving from capitulation to something more in sync.
Santiment’s broader focus complicates this reading. Its 10-10,000 BTC band captures a much broader slice of large holders than Glassnode’s dip-buying cohort, and across that range, net positioning since October is still negative.
One way to reconcile the two positions: Mid-sized portfolios may have truly panic bought while the largest holders continued to distribute securities with each rally, driving the total number down.
This is important because Bitcoin does not need retail to appear. Retail is already there.
What it needs is for distribution from large wallets to stop, or better yet, reverse. Without this, each recovery risks being accepted by the very cohort that must meet structural demand to succeed.
The shrimp do their part. They wait for the whales to join them.
