Sign of the week: Whales and sharks added 45,000 BTC to their wallets in one week, marking the largest accumulation among major BTC holders since July 2025. Despite the growing asset accumulation, leveraged traders are making their biggest bets against Bitcoin in three years.
The biggest hands in the Bitcoin market just made their most decisive move in almost a year. At the same time, Bitcoin is approaching two price levels that have historically acted as a turning point. What happens between $78,000 and $80,000 in the coming days could resolve a disagreement that has been brewing for months.
About the Bitcoin Impact Index
The Bitcoin Impact Index measures which groups of Bitcoin holders are under financial stress, how severe that stress is, and whether it is severe enough to shake confidence in the direction of the market. It combines on-chain holder behavior, ETF and derivatives activity, and exchange-level liquidity flows into a single weekly score between 0 and 100. Unlike sentiment indicators, it deliberately excludes social media and volume data to focus on what participants do rather than what they say.
Scoring bands:
- Normal rotation (0–24) — routine profit taking, without structural change
- Elevated repositioning (25–49) — specific groups changing position, uneven pressure across the market
- High impact (50–74) — widespread tension between multiple groups of holders and institutional flows simultaneously
- Critical Hit (75–100) — total capitulation: LTH losses, large ETF outflows, major liquidations and strong currency inflows at the same time
Week 16 (April 12-18): BII 37.7: High repositioning
The index rose slightly from last week, but remains in elevated repositioning. On a surface, this suggests that little has changed, but a closer look shows the surface starting to crack.
Positive signs: the biggest hands are buying strongly
Whales and sharks (holders with between 100 and 10,000 BTC) aggregate 45,000 BTC this week in their wallets. That’s him largest accumulation in a single week by these cohorts since July 2025, and what makes it particularly notable is that both groups moved in the same direction at the same time. In recent months, they have mostly been accumulating separately: one group buying while the other held steady or sold. This week they shopped together, suggesting increasing bullish momentum.
As such, long-term holders now have aggregate more than 1 million BTC to their wallets for the last three months, with almost 500,000 BTC added in the last 30 days, the largest monthly accumulation since May 2025. Historically, long-term holders tend to accumulate during bear markets, so this alone does not confirm a bottom. But the scale and persistence of the buying, which continues even as its holdings move towards losses, suggests growing conviction rather than opportunistic buying on dips.
Other important positive signs include:
- ETF inflows hit $996 million this week, the strongest week since mid-January.
- Stablecoin inflows grew for the third consecutive week, suggesting rising dry powder to support the buying momentum.
- Short-term holders extended their rally and its P/L reached the highest level in 2026.
Mixed signals: shorts are more confident than ever
Faced with all these purchases, the financing rates hit its most negative reading in three years. This indicates that a bearish bias persists among leveraged traders as they are willing to pay a record premium to bet against Bitcoin. Even the latest series of short sell-offs did not significantly shake this convictionand now it persists for weeks without the price reduction they are waiting for. This suggests that the situation resolves into a massive contraction of short positions or a sharp liquidation.
LTH SOPR fell below 1 again, meaning that long-term holders who sold this week did so mostly at a loss. The fact that the supply of profitable LTH has been quietly shrinking even as the price has remained stable is now becoming a major structural concern.
Bitcoin is also approaching its true average price (around $78,000) and the short-term holder’s cost basis (about $80,000), which currently act as important points of resistance. The last time Bitcoin surpassed both levels during a bear market phase was briefly in 2018, and the move did not sustain. If Bitcoin holds above both this time, it would materially change the landscape on-chain: more holders in profit means less pressure to sell. If you fail, the weight of the underwater positions pushes you down.
What could happen next?
This week, Bitcoin’s correlation with traditional financial markets reached record levels:
- S&P 500: highest correlation since October 2024
- Gold: highest correlation since September 2025
- US Dollar Index: Most negative correlation since September 2022.
That means Bitcoin’s price movement is exposed to the events of the US-Iran war, as well as other macroeconomic and geopolitical developments, more than ever this year. Considering the latest “reopening” of the Strait of Hormuz, which leaves some questions on the table, the situation does not seem to be fully resolved and could still bring significant volatility for Bitcoin.
The next price direction would largely depend on whether or not Bitcoin manages to break above $80,000 in the near term. If successful, this could remove significant tension, potentially supporting its further upside potential. A rejection at those levels would validate short positions, shake out recent buyers and could send the index back into High Impact territory.
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