Six weeks of war have divided bitcoin marched into two camps. Institutional buyers who continue to accumulate regardless of conditions, and everyone else who leaves.
The result is a market that appears stable on the surface, with Bitcoin holding in a range of $65,000 to $73,000 through five weeks of strife, $600 million liquidation events and the worst sentiment readings since the 2022 bear market, but it’s narrowing below in a way that matters going forward.
Here’s who’s on each side and what their behavior tells us about where belief really belongs.
Mandated buyers
Three entities currently account for almost all of the sustained buying pressure in the bitcoin market, and all three are buying because their business model requires it rather than because they have made a discretionary call on price.
The strategy was the most visible. The company disclosed its latest purchase on April 5, adding 4,871 BTC for approximately $329.9 million, or an average of $67,718 per coin.
Total holdings now stand at 766,970 BTC acquired for $58.02 billion on a mixed cost basis of $75,644. The position is about 8% underwater at current prices, but the strategy continues to buy below its average, lowering the breakeven point with each purchase.
A CoinDesk report from last week showed Strategy’s 30-day accumulation holding steady at around 44,000 BTC through March.
Strategy’s STRC preferred stock product saw hundreds of millions of new inflows around its recent ex-dividend date, providing the capital needed for continued accumulation. As long as investor appetite for this yield product persists, Strategy continues to buy. If STRC inflows slow, so does supply.
Meanwhile, spot Bitcoin ETFs in the United States absorbed around 50,000 BTC during the March 30-day rolling window, the highest monthly pace since October 2025.
But broader ETF industry data, tracked on a weekly basis, tells a less optimistic story. CoinShares reported just $22 million in U.S. spot ETF inflows last week out of $107 million in total Bitcoin ETP flows globally. At the same time, most flows came from a single country: Swiss-listed products alone brought in $157 million, representing 70% of global ETP flows of $224 million.
The institutional channel is open but the flow is very concentrated and slows down every week.
Meanwhile, Bitmine Immersion Technologies, while primarily an ether play, represents the same structural dynamics on the ETH side.
The company purchased 71,252 ETH last week, its largest weekly purchase since December 2025, and now holds 4.8 million tokens worth approximately $10 billion.
Chairman Tom Lee hit an all-time low in the stock market this week as his company actively spent hundreds of millions to accumulate the asset he publicly talked about.
Discretionary sellers
Everyone who has a choice runs for the exit.
Whales holding between 1,000 and 10,000 BTC have moved from the biggest buyers in the market to the biggest sellers. The year-over-year change in whale holdings fell from around 200,000 BTC at the peak of the 2024 bull market to negative 188,000 BTC, a reversal of nearly 400,000 BTC that CryptoQuant described as one of the most aggressive large-holder distribution cycles on record. The 365-day moving average continues to decline, confirming that the selling is structural rather than reactive to a single event.
Mid-tier holders, i.e. portfolios of 100-1,000 BTC, are technically still accumulating, but the pace has collapsed by over 60% since October 2025, from nearly 1 million BTC in annual additions to 429,000. They haven’t turned to selling yet, but the trajectory is in that direction.
Publicly traded Bitcoin miners are liquidating their cash. Riot Platforms, MARA Holdings, and Genius Group revealed that they sold more than 19,000 BTC from their treasuries in a single week earlier this month.
Some are facing operational stress, with bitcoin near $70,000 and struggling at unprecedented levels and rising energy costs. Companies like Core Scientific, Iris Energy and Hut 8 are shifting their capacity towards AI hosting where contracted revenue replaces the volatility of mining revenue.
Bhutan, the only sovereign country to have built a Bitcoin position through its own hydropower-backed mining operation, has sold 70% of its holdings since October 2024, going from around 13,000 BTC to 3,954. The kingdom moved an additional 319.7 BTC to exchange-linked wallets this week. Its last mining inflow exceeding $100,000 was recorded over a year ago, suggesting mining may have been shut down completely. The strategy now buys more bitcoin in a typical week than is left in Bhutan.
The feeling gap
The gap between what mandated buyers are doing and what the rest of the market is feeling is historically unusual.
The Fear and Greed Index remained for more than a month between 8 and 14, the most sustained period in extreme fear territory since the low of 2022. That figure only rose above the single-digit mark this week, after the ceasefire was announced.
Santiment data showed five bearish social media posts for every four bullish posts last weekend, the most negative trend since the start of the war.
Yet during all of this, the ETFs were buying 50,000 BTC per month, the strategy was buying 44,000, and bitcoin never went below $65,000. The floor held because mandated buyers absorbed what discretionary sellers threw away. The question is whether this absorption is sustainable.
What the ceasefire has changed and what it hasn’t changed
Tuesday’s ceasefire announcement produced the biggest single-day rally in more than a month, with bitcoin surging above $72,000 and shorts of $427 million liquidated. Open interest in BTC and ETH perpetuals increased by $2.1 billion and $2.2 billion respectively in 24 hours, with coin-denominated OIs also rising, confirming net new long positions rather than simple short liquidations.
Coinbase Premium turned positive on bitcoin and ether for the first time since October’s all-time high, reversing months of persistent negative readings. If this holds, it is the first sign of a real re-engagement of American buyers since the start of the war.
But the ceasefire has not changed the underlying structural dynamics. Whether this turns into a trend reversal will depend on whether the two-week truce becomes permanent and whether the institutional flows that held the course during the war can surpass the $73,000 cap that has rejected every rally since late February.
In conclusion, a reading of all the data shows that the Bitcoin buyer base has been shrinking for months.
The number of entities exerting sustained buying pressure can be counted on one hand. Strategy, ETF and to a lesser extent the new Morgan Stanley channel. Everyone sells, slows down or leaves.
