Are Bitcoin short-term holders responsible for recent weakness

ambcrypto.com:

Analytic firm Glassnode, in a new report, found that the Bitcoin [BTC] market remains highly volatile. Heavily impacted by the downturn of the broader financial markets, the king coin looks uncertain in the short term. In contrast, the market remains consistent and follows well-developed trends in the longer term. 

In its assessment, Glassnode considered how differently the various cohorts of BTC holders have behaved as the entire market navigates through the bear market. The on-chain intelligence company also considered the disparity in the user behavior of HODLers and short-term holders.

The report also looked at different wallet sizes to understand how these categories of holders have reacted in the face of uncertainty. 

The last 12 months have been marked by four different phases according to Glassnode. Firstly, there was a period of BTC accumulation following the November 2021 all-time high. This was followed by a period of coin distribution caused by “a slow, but sustained collapse in price.”

Despite the severe fall in the market occasioned by the collapse of LUNA, investors took to accumulating BTC. Following this period of accumulation, the last phase, which we are currently in, entails investors seeking exit liquidity through coin distribution and profit taking.

Furthermore, as per data, this current phase is constituted by holders of over 10,000 BTC (whales) who have taken to “aggressively” distributing the coins, “capitalizing on any exit liquidity present amidst global market uncertainty.”

A look at the whale-exchange net position change metric confirmed this. 

Source: Glassnode

Upon analyzing the behavior of BTC holders in the long term, Glassnode considered the liveliness metric. According to Glassnode Academy,