The cryptocurrency market managed to survive two powerful collapses during September. Both started from bitcoin. Analysis of the price and on-chain indicators of bitcoin confirmed a long-standing assumption that BTC is becoming an increasingly difficult market for retail traders. After every negative news or discouraging announcement, these traders were the first who triggered or joined the sell-offs setting the stage for bears. At the same time, the share of institutional investors in the bitcoin market continues to grow, and their model of behavior involves waiting out all the storms, which makes large capital insensitive to price drops.
Notably, it is institutional investors who are engaged in buying back the volumes that make it to the market after a sell-off. For example, the recent purchase of over 300 BTC by a market whale during the coin's decline to $40,000. This market player has more than $4.7 billion in bitcoins in his wallet. It is likely that it is big players that begin to gradually push small retail traders out of bitcoin with their short positions and causing local price collapses to purchase the emerging supply in the market at a more favorable price. Along with institutionalists, retailers themselves often succumb to panic and launch mass bitcoin sales after any gloomy news or a sharp drop in price, thereby exacerbating the fall.
Recently, the market witnessed the largest bitcoin inflows in the past three weeks. Exchange platforms received more than 7,700 BTC in a few days. This amount is quite low for major traders, but commensurate with the capabilities of the retail audience, especially taking into account traders' losses on the bitcoin's price decline. At the same time, the supply of bitcoin on the market continues to remain at record lows, indicating that more restrained market participants are rapidly purchasing the available supply.
The Market Value to Realized Value (MVRV) indicator shows the cryptocurrency was trading with losses for the holders. The indicator's reading fell to a record low of -14%. It also points to a sell-off in the period when the price fell to $40,000. At the same time, the subsequent recoupment of the available volumes in the market triggered the growth of the MVRV to +14%, which indicates huge profits for whales, who added the dumped coins to their wallets. There is also a divergence between the number of unique addresses and the market value of bitcoin. It shows that the number of retail traders is steadily falling, and the main volumes are obtained by the big players. A similar trend can be seen in the etherium on-chain, in which a recent surge to $4,000 was the result of institutional traders' intense activity. All said above, along with the rising number of cryptocurrencies having a market cap of over a billion, demonstrate that the retail traders continue to shift their capital into other assets, while bitcoin and soon etherium may become a market sector for big players only.
As of 2 p.m., the price of bitcoin is trading in a narrow range between $42,400 and $41,500. The drop in price may cause impulsive reactions which are not necessary as the on-chain indicators show the beginning of the recovery period and a further upward trend. The daily chart also shows signs of recovery. Stochastic has formed a bullish cross and is moving up, while RSI is approaching the level of 40. At the same time, the MACD is still in the red zone and signals a continuation of the downside movement. Despite some positive sentiment, bitcoin could likely go to the nearest support zone located near $38,000, but even such a collapse should not be a reason to sell BTC coins.
