Bitcoin Has Almost Entirely Retraced Its Gains From Christmas

Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) optimism nearly evaporated over the past day as the world’s apex crypto crashed from almost touching the $100,000 mark to being priced below $96,000.

What Happened: Bitcoin slipped to a low of $95,700 on Friday morning ET, down from a high of nearly $99,400 on Christmas Day.

The apex crypto started the year at a price of around $47,000 and rallied sharply over the past year to hit new all-time highs.

On-chain data now shows that the massive price retrace could have been predicted.

According to analyst Ali Martinez, on-chain analysis firm CryptoQuant’s data showed that exchanges received a massive amount of Bitcoin over the past week.

This is indicated by the exchange reserve, which denotes the total amount of BTC held in the wallets of all centralized exchanges.

When the value of this metric increases, it signifies that holders are making net deposits into these platforms.

This can be bearish for the asset, as one of the main reasons for making exchange inflows is for selling-related purposes.

On the other hand, when the indicator decreases, it implies that outflows are overpowering inflows, with a net amount of the asset entering exchange-associated wallets.

Such a trend could be a sign that holders are accumulating, which is naturally bullish for the asset’s price.

Now, take a look at the chart from on-chain analytics firm CryptoQuant, shared by Martinez, that shows the trend in Bitcoin Exchange Reserve over the past couple of weeks.

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As can be seen from the above chart, the Bitcoin exchange reserve was on a decline during the price rally earlier in the month, indicating that investors were buying and helping fuel the rally.

This wasn’t the case leading up to and during the Christmas rally, as the indicator went up massively instead.

In total, investors made a massive 33,000 BTC in net inflows into these platforms over the past week, which is valued at around $3.15 billion at current exchange rates.

Most of these inflows came on Christmas Eve, as can be seen clearly on the chart. It appears that whales were preparing to sell in advance and pulled the trigger once they felt the price got high enough by Christmas.

This resulted in the asset crashing in price quickly. Bitcoin was trading at $95,743 by 9:10 a.08:05 AM EST Friday.