Bitcoin’s Silent Exodus Hits Crypto as Long-Time Buyers Cash Out

Political

Cryptocurrency

Summary:

The pressure has been most acute since Oct. 10, when $19 billion in liquidations were registered following unexpected comments on punitive tariffs by US President Donald Trump.

Bitcoin’s most entrenched investors are still cashing out — and the pressure is starting to show.

More than two months after the token hit a record high above $126,000, Bitcoin has fallen nearly 30% and is struggling to find support. One reason: its long-time holders haven’t stopped selling. New blockchain data shows that coins held for years are being divested at some of the fastest rates in recent memory, just as the market’s ability to absorb them is fading.

According to a report from K33 Research, the amount of Bitcoin that had remained unmoved for at least two years has declined by 1.6 million coins since early 2023, roughly $140 billion worth. That signals sustained selling by long-term holders.

In 2025 alone, nearly $300 billion worth of Bitcoin that had been dormant for over a year has re-entered circulation. CryptoQuant, a blockchain analytics firm, reported that the past 30 days saw one of the heaviest long-term holder distributions in more than five years.

“The market is experiencing a slow bleed characterized by steady spot selling into thin bid liquidity, creating a grinding decline that’s harder to reverse than leverage-driven capitulation events,” said Chris Newhouse, director of research at Ergonia, a firm specializing in decentralized finance. Bitcoin’s Silent Exodus Hits Crypto as Long-Time Buyers Cash Out_1

Bitcoin’s Silent Exodus Hits Crypto as Long-Time Buyers Cash Out_1

For much of the past year, that selling was absorbed by a surge of demand from newly launched exchange-traded funds and crypto investment firms. But that demand has faded. ETF flows have turned negative. Derivatives volumes have dropped. And retail participation has thinned. The same supply is now landing on a weaker market with fewer active buyers.

The pressure has been most acute since Oct. 10, when $19 billion in liquidations were registered following unexpected comments on punitive tariffs by US President Donald Trump. That was the biggest single-day leverage washout ever in crypto’s history. Traders have retreated from derivatives markets since the crash with few signs of a rebound in sight.

After a brief jump on Wednesday to $90,000, which traders attributed to a raft of liquidations of short positions, Bitcoin quickly resumed its decline. The original cryptocurrency fell back toward the lower end of the trading range seen since the October crash, dropping as much as 2.8% to $85,278.

“Unlike prior cycles, these reactivations are not driven by altcoin trading or protocol incentives, but by deep liquidity from U.S. ETFs and treasury demand, enabling OG holders to realize profits at six-digit prices and materially reducing ownership concentration,” K33 Senior Analyst Vetle Lunde said, referencing the abbreviation for “original gangster,” the slang term used by crypto enthusiasts to describe early adopters and investors. The amount seen this year and last “represent the second and third-largest long-term held supply reactivations in Bitcoin’s history, surpassed only by 2017.”

Open interest, the number of outstanding contracts, for both Bitcoin options and perpetual futures, remains well below the levels seen before the October crash, according to data from Coinglass. The decline points to most traders are still on the sideline given such markets make up the majority of trading volumes in crypto. At the same time, the so-called basis trade - a way to profit from pricing discrepancies between spot and futures markets - has turned unprofitable for hedge funds.

However, Lunde said selling from Bitcoin long-time holders may be drawling to a close as the reactivation nears a threshold based on observations of historical onchain flows.

“Looking ahead, the sell-side pressure from long-term holders appears closer to saturation, with around 20% of BTC supply reactivated over the past two years.” Lunde wrote. “The expectation is for OG selling to subside in 2026, allowing 2-year supply to rise as BTC transitions toward net buy-side demand amid deeper institutional integration.”

Source: Bloomberg

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Central Bank

Economic

Inflation data set for release Thursday morning is expected to show price increases remain above the Federal Reserve's target in the final major piece of US economic data released on an altered schedule due to the government shutdown.

The November Consumer Price Index (CPI) report is set for release at 8:30 a.m. ET on Thursday and is expected to show headline prices rose 3.1% over the prior year, according to data from Bloomberg.

"Core CPI," which strips out the often-volatile food and energy categories, is expected to rise 3.1% from last year.

In September, the last month for which there is inflation data, both the headline and core CPI measures rose 3% from a year ago.

Thursday's report will mark the first official inflation read since September, after the BLS opted to cancel the October report in light of the US government shutdown. This means November's reading will not have month-on-month comparisons for the headline and core CPI figures.

This should also mark the final time major economic data, notably the monthly jobs report and inflation data, is published on an altered schedule following the government shutdown that lasted 43 days earlier this year.

The November jobs report was released on Tuesday, showing more jobs were created last month than expected, while the unemployment rate hit a four-year high. The December jobs report is set for release on Jan. 9, 2026, returning to its typical spot on a Friday morning.

"Inflation is still above target ... but this should be temporary," said Jeffrey Roach, chief economist for LPL Financial. "As demand cools in the coming months, pricing pressures should ease, giving investors some breathing room."

Economists at Bank of America wrote in a report ahead of the release that goods inflation should "remain sticky owing to tariffs," while services "should be softer driven in part by health insurance."

This push-pull dynamic within the inflation data is likely to keep the Fed on the sidelines at the end of its January meeting, with traders currently pricing in a roughly 25% chance the central bank cuts rates next month.

Last week, the Fed's forecasts suggested it would cut rates only one more time in 2026 after cutting rates by 0.25% at three straight meetings to end 2025.

Source: Yahoo Finance

To stay updated on all economic events of today, please check out our Economic calendar

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Manuel

Economic

Political

The European Union struck a provisional deal on Wednesday to set tighter controls on imports of farm products resulting from a planned trade agreement with South American bloc Mercosur, potentially meeting some complaints of critics of the deal.

The EU and the bloc of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay concluded negotiations last December to create the EU's largest ever trade accord, in terms of tariff cuts, some 25 years after negotiations were launched.

The deal has proven contentious. Countries led by France and Italy have said they are not ready to back the trade deal and have demanded additional measures to protect their farmers.

The European Commission presented the accord, for approval in September and sought to soften opposition by adding a mechanism that would allow Mercosur preferential access for some farm products, such as beef, poultry and sugar, to be suspended.

It said the trigger for launching an investigation should be if the import volumes rose by more than 10% per year or prices fell by that amount in one or more EU members. However, the European Parliament voted on Tuesday for a lower trigger level of 5%, compared with a three-year average of imports.

Negotiations started late on Wednesday on a compromise between representatives from the parliament and counterparts from the Council, the grouping of EU governments.

In the end, they decided that 8% should be the trigger, the Danish presidency of the EU said.

They also agreed a declaration spelling out EU measures to carry out checks, including in Mercosur countries, to support farmers and to insist that production standards such as on pesticides and animal health will be met.

Source: Reuters

To stay updated on all economic events of today, please check out our Economic calendar

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Stocks

Oracle (ORCL) stock fell more than 5% Wednesday after the Financial Times reported that private lender Blue Owl Capital (OWL) will not back a $10 billion deal for its next data center as the software company draws investor scrutiny over its use of debt to fund spending on AI computing capacity.

Blue Owl, Oracle's biggest data center partner, had been in discussions with lenders and Oracle for the deal to invest in a massive facility in Michigan, but negotiations stalled, according to the FT.

The report raised questions over how the project will be funded. Oracle spokesperson Michael Egbert said in a statement to Yahoo Finance that its development partner, Related Digital, "selected the best equity partner from a competitive group of options, which in this instance was not Blue Owl."

Blue Owl has been a prominent player in the AI data center boom, partnering with Oracle on its data center projects in Texas and New Mexico, as well as inking a deal with Meta (META) to help finance its mammoth facility in Louisiana.

Such arrangements — in which debt is tied to joint ventures or special purpose vehicles and not included in companies' balance sheets — in addition to massive corporate bond issuances by major tech firms this year, have raised concerns about how companies are funding their AI build-outs. Oracle in particular faces greater scrutiny as it lacks the strong internal cash flow that its Big Tech cloud peers boast, according to analysts.

The decline of Oracle stock on Wednesday means shares are down nearly 18% for the month. The stock fell after the company's earnings last week showed its costs rising more than expected while the company bled more cash than investors anticipated. The tech firm's $248 billion in lease obligations, revealed in its quarterly SEC filing, added to investor fears over its growing debt pile. Its overreliance on OpenAI to meet its ambitious revenue targets has also sent shareholders backpedaling.

Although Oracle execs said after its earnings results that the company is committed to maintaining an investment-grade credit rating — it currently has a BBB rating on its bonds — investors haven't been so sure, piling into Oracle credit default swaps that saw spreads reach their highest level last week since 2009.

Source: Yahoo Finance

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Manuel

Stocks

Amazon.com Inc. is reorganizing teams working on artificial intelligence projects, putting a top leader from the company’s cloud division in charge of a new unit.

Peter DeSantis will lead the new group, Amazon Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy said Wednesday in a message to employees, which was also posted on the company’s corporate blog. The new organization will combine Amazon’s Artificial General Intelligence team — which oversees the company’s Nova-branded AI models and the digital brains of the Alexa voice assistant — with Amazon’s chipmaking unit and quantum computing research.

Amazon Web Services, the cloud unit, is the largest seller of rented computing power and data storage, but has struggled to replicate that dominance among AI developers amid intense competition from Microsoft Corp., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and a host of startups.

Several months after OpenAI’s ChatGPT came on the scene in late 2022, Amazon centralized AI development work that was previously shared by the Alexa team and AWS into one organization. That reshuffling announced Amazon’s ambition to build cutting-edge, multipurpose AI tools of the sort that power ChatGPT. Wednesday’s move bolsters that team with the addition of Annapurna Labs, the startup Amazon acquired in 2015 and used as the foundation to develop general-purpose chips and AI-focused hardware.

“I believe we are at this inflection point with several of our new technologies that will power a significant amount of our future customer experiences,” Jassy said in his note.

DeSantis was previously senior vice president of utility computing, overseeing most AWS engineering teams. In his new role, he’ll report to Jassy, who said DeSantis has a track record of “solving problems at the edge of what’s technically possible.”

Rohit Prasad, the current AGI unit’s chief and longtime leader of the speech science teams behind Alexa, will leave Amazon at the end of the year, Jassy said.

Pieter Abbeel, who joined Amazon last year when the company scooped up the robot-software maker Covariant, will lead the teams creating Amazon’s foundational AI models.

Source: Bloomberg

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Manuel

Commodity

Robust investment demand for silver, its inclusion on the U.S. critical minerals list, and a wave of momentum buying have propelled the white metal to a fresh record high, setting prices up to close out 2025 at more ‌than double the level at which they began.

Silver, which surpassed the $65 per ounce threshold for the first time on Wednesday, has gained ‌more than 120% this year and is poised for its best annual performance on record per LSEG data, which dates back to 1982. The metal is outperforming safe-haven gold, which is on track to climb 64% in 2025.

Spot prices hit a record high of $66.87/oz on Wednesday.

"(The rally) is very much investment-driven at the moment. It's ⁠got that strong fundamental background behind ‌it ... but these prices are being driven by investment and by speculation," said Rhona O'Connell, head of market analysis at StoneX.

Silver's robust fundamental backdrop includes a persistent supply ‍deficit, and healthy demand prospects from the artificial intelligence data center, solar cell and electric vehicle industries.

The metal also benefits from the same macroeconomic factors supporting gold, as well as safe-haven flows due to geopolitical and trade tensions.

Looking ahead, these factors, as well as less plentiful inventories outside the U.S., create "quite a supportive environment," said Nitesh ‌Shah, commodities strategist at WisdomTree.

"Silver prices could gain to something close to $75/oz for the end of next year," he added.

The metal's inclusion on the U.S. critical minerals list has also supported prices. Concerns that silver could be hit by tariffs prompted a wave of outflows to the U.S. earlier this year, leading to tight liquidity in the London spot market.

Demand from India and China, coupled with momentum buying, have added ⁠to this perfect storm for the metal, analysts said.

"When there is a strong price performance, this really lures Chinese traders into the market, as evidenced by increasing trading volumes and increasing open interest on the exchanges," said Julius Baer analyst Carsten Menke.

Some analysts remain bullish on silver, expecting the metal ‍to break the $70/oz milestone ⁠next year, especially if U.S. interest rate cuts support the appetite for precious metals.

However, others cautioned that the historically volatile metal remains vulnerable to steep corrections, especially in correlation to gold.

"If gold ⁠moves in either direction by x%, one should expect silver to move in the same direction by 2x% or 2.5x% because ‌it's a smaller market, it's more volatile," said O'Connell.

Source: Reuters

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Damon

Commodity

LONDON/NEW YORK, Dec 17 (Reuters) - Oil prices rallied more than 1% on Wednesday after U.S. President Donald Trump ordered what he called a complete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela, raising global political tensions and easing concerns about a growing surplus of global crude.

Brent crude futures were up 99 cents, or 1.68%, at $59.91 a barrel at 1606 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was up 93 cents, or 1.68%, to $56.20 a barrel.

Growing U.S. fuel inventories tempered the rise in crude oil prices.

Oil prices settled near five-year lows in the previous session on signs of progress in Russia-Ukraine peace talks. A peace agreement could see Western sanctions on Moscow eased, freeing up supply as the market grapples with fragile global demand.

On Tuesday, Trump ordered a blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela, saying he regarded President Nicolas Maduro's administration as a foreign terrorist organization. The Venezuelan government said in a statement it rejected Trump's "grotesque threat."

"Russian risks are well telegraphed, but there are clear risks to the Venezuelan oil supply," ING analyst Warren Patterson said.

Trump's comments on a blockade came a week after the U.S. seized a sanctioned oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela.

It is unclear how many tankers will be affected and how the U.S. will impose the blockade, and whether Trump will turn to the Coast Guard to interdict vessels as he did last week. In recent months, the U.S. has moved warships into the region.

A drone view of a pump jack and drilling rig south of Midland, Texas, U.S. June 11, 2025. REUTERS/Eli Hartman/File Photo

While many vessels picking up oil in Venezuela are under sanctions, others transporting the country's oil and crude by way of Iran and Russia have not been sanctioned. Tankers chartered by Chevron (CVX.N), opens new tab are also carrying Venezuelan crude to the U.S. under an authorisation previously granted by Washington.

"Venezuelan oil production accounts for around 1% of global output, but supplies are concentrated among a small group of buyers, mainly Chinese teapot refiners, the U.S., and Cuba," said Muyu Xu, senior oil analyst at Kpler.

China is the biggest buyer of Venezuelan crude, which accounts for roughly 4% of its imports.

RISING INVENTORIES

Rising inventories of gasoline and distillate in the U.S. took some of the steam out of crude oil's rise. While crude barrels fell last week, gasoline and distillate inventories grew more than analysts expected, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Crude inventories dropped by 1.3 million barrels to 424.4 million barrels in the week ended December 12, the EIA said, compared with analysts' expectations in a Reuters poll for a 1.1 million-barrel draw.

U.S. gasoline stocks, meanwhile, added 4.8 million barrels in the week to 225.6 million barrels, the EIA said, compared with analysts' expectations in a Reuters poll for a 2.1 million-barrel build.

Distillate stockpiles, which include diesel and heating oil, rose by 1.7 million barrels in the week to 118.5 million barrels, versus expectations for a 1.2 million-barrel rise, the EIA data showed.

"Although we still expect a crude surplus to develop as early as next month, such a process will be challenged by seasonal tendencies for a supply decline as well as by an unusually strong pace of U.S. refinery activity," said consultant Jim Ritterbusch of Ritterbusch and Associates.