Bitcoin short-term holders move 47,000 BTC to exchanges at a loss

What happened

Bitcoin holders who bought recently shifted tens of thousands of coins onto cryptocurrency exchanges while sitting on losses, according to onchain data published by CryptoQuant and reported by Decrypt and Cointelegraph. The transfers came as bitcoin slid to an 11-week low, with the two outlets putting the 24-hour total at 47,025 BTC and 47,300 BTC respectively.

Almost all of that movement was underwater. Coins sent at a loss dwarfed the small volume arriving at a profit, which the reports put at roughly 1,100 to 1,700 BTC. Combined inflows reached about 48,500 BTC, worth close to $3.6 billion at a bitcoin price of approximately $74,000 cited in the Decrypt report.

The price backdrop was weak. Cointelegraph reported that bitcoin touched $72,670, its lowest level since Aug. 20, after falling below short-term holders' average cost basis of about $75,700. Bitcoin had already been drifting down from late-September highs above $85,000 into the $73,000-to-$74,000 area.

Both reports stress an important caveat: the chart tracks transfers to exchanges, not completed sales. A deposit can be the first step toward selling, but it can also serve trading for other tokens, collateral, or access to other services. The data does not establish how much of the transferred bitcoin was ultimately sold.

Why it matters

CryptoQuant generally classifies short-term holders as investors who have owned bitcoin for fewer than 155 days, a cohort considered more likely to sell during a drawdown, especially when their coins are worth less than they paid. Their behaviour is therefore watched as a gauge of near-term selling pressure.

The flow was unusually one-sided. In a Nov. 11 analysis, CryptoQuant contributor Amr Taha wrote that profitable transfers stood near 1,700 BTC on Nov. 10, meaning roughly 27 BTC arrived at a loss for every 1 BTC transferred at a profit. Decrypt characterised the latest loss-heavy spike as close to the deepest readings seen since July, suggesting recent buyers are exiting rather than cashing in gains from the earlier rally.

What the data shows

Taha's analysis identified two large waves of underwater deposits in the preceding week: 50,790 BTC on Nov. 3 and 46,060 BTC on Nov. 10. The largest 24-hour inflow of loss-carrying coins since late July came on Oct. 8, hours after bitcoin fell back to $80,000, when rolling inflows peaked at 50,500 BTC, according to Cointelegraph.

A separate CryptoQuant chart of deposits to Binance, broken down by how recently each coin last moved onchain, showed 3,290 BTC from coins last moved between one day and one week earlier on Nov. 1, followed by 8,114 BTC in the same category on Nov. 3. On Nov. 9, the exchange received 1,925 BTC from coins last moved one to three months earlier. Those figures identify which age groups are active but do not show when owners originally bought.

Broader supply pressure may also be building. Glassnode identified about 4 million BTC held by longer-term investors that was acquired between $85,000 and $118,000, a potential pocket of underwater coins above current prices, Decrypt reported.

Background

Short-term holders had moved into aggregate unrealized profit on Aug. 20 as bitcoin rebounded toward $80,000, and CryptoQuant's net unrealized profit/loss metric for the cohort reached its highest level since November 2025 when bitcoin climbed to $87,200 in September. They slipped back into aggregate unrealized loss on Friday, Cointelegraph reported.

CryptoQuant head of research Julio Moreno wrote on Monday that bitcoin could still be inside the downtrend that began in November 2025. He argued that if rallies keep stalling near the cohort's cost basis and net unrealized losses deepen, the August rebound would look like a pause in a broader decline rather than a recovery. Loss-heavy exchange deposits have recurred for months as prices swung in both directions.

What to watch

The central question is whether the deposits turn into realised selling or stay on exchanges for other purposes. Also worth tracking is whether price rebounds stall near the short-term holder cost basis, which Moreno flagged as a signal of whether losses continue to deepen. Glassnode's estimate of coins acquired above current prices adds a second supply overhang to monitor if the price stays below those levels.

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