Bitcoin bear market confirmed? Analysts at odds over whales' BTC exchange moves

Bitcoin (BTC) is "confirming" a bear market because whales are still sending large amounts of BTC to exchanges.

That's according to Ki Young Ju, CEO of on-chain analytics service CryptoQuant, who on June 21 warned over the "very uncertain" current state of Bitcoin. 

Too many whales spoil the market?

Uploading a chart of the so-called "Whale Capitulation Index," Ki identified the first major spate of whale selling on exchanges since July 2019. 

At that time, BTC/USD had just come off a run to $13,900 — a level it would not reach again until October 2020.

As such, given this historical context, Ki joined the voices arguing that the recent $64,500 all-time high for Bitcoin could well have been a local top.

"I hate to say this, but it seems like the $BTC bear market confirmed," he wrote in comments.

"Too many whales are sending $BTC to exchanges."

The data caught the attention of statistician Willy Woo, who this week noted that hodlers were once more adding to their positions, dredging up the supply at price levels just above $30,000.

A request for data on whales' behavior during 2017 yielded a chart showing three distinct episodes of coins being sent to exchanges en masse. This, as the Twitter user who provided it highlighted, did not stop BTC/USD hitting its then all-time high of $20,000 by the end of the year. 

Continuing, Ki himself acknowledged that it may not pay to stay bearish on Bitcoin beyond the short term.

"To be clear, I expect my $BTC bearish bias won't last long (maybe just a few weeks) because the market looks good in terms of supply/demand in the long term (e.g., Stablecoins ratio(USD) and SSR)," he added.

So don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's over."

China sends Puell Multiple tumbling

As Cointelegraph reported, a host of factors appears to be contributing to downward price pressure on Bitcoin.

Related: Classic bearish chart pattern forms for Bitcoin as BTC price tumbles to $32K

Most notable of all is arguably the seismic shift among miners after China launched a crackdown which halted activities in some of what were previously the most intensive mining regions worldwide.

Commentators have called the event, which is already seeing hashing power transfer to other countries, as the biggest "attack" that the network has ever witnessed.

The network hash rate has declined considerably, but not by more than 40% from its all-time highs, while price action has retained $30,000 support.

CryptoQuant eyed a corresponding drop in Bitcoin's Puell Multiple, a classic indicator which now puts the largest cryptocurrency closer to "buy" territory.