All year long, institutional investors have been accumulating BTC coins and have been the main catalyst for the cryptocurrency's bullish rally. However, at the end of December, the "whales" take profits and sell their coins, which puts pressure on the price. Despite the decline in the share of retail traders, their impact on the volatility and speculative component of the Bitcoin market is difficult to overestimate. But on the eve of 2022, they are becoming the main hope for the resumption of the upward movement of the cryptocurrency.

"Whales" sell BTC

Glassnode experts are confident that the main sellers of bitcoin in the period from November to December are large holders. I assume that this is due to profit-taking, which large companies carry out before the increase in volatility on December 31. Over the past two days, BTC transfers worth more than $3.6 billion have been recorded on centralized platforms. It is not difficult to guess that large holders are behind this, who by their actions destabilize the market and increase pressure on the price of bitcoin.

Retail traders are waiting for a New Year's miracle

In this scenario, the main investors of bitcoin are retail traders who are trying to launch a bullish rally of cryptocurrencies. The retail audience is also behind the impulse increase on December 21, but as we have already seen, without the support of the whales, this idea was doomed to failure. Despite this, retail investors continued to confidently buy BTC coins at a favorable price. This is evidenced by the on-chain metric of the number of unique addresses, which remained at the level of 900 thousand active addresses for most of November and all of December.

The main conclusion about BTC holders in 2021

In 2021, the main audience of bitcoin finally became long-term holders, whose presence in the asset is about 75%. But even here it is important to take into account the division into categories. Most of the BTC investors are large investors, with wallets where at least 1000 BTC is stored. Glassnode analysts cite data according to which the number of wallets with a balance of 1k Bitcoin has reached a historical maximum, updating the record of 2016. Their impact on the market is hard to overestimate and the local impulse movement of bitcoin on December 21 proves that without the help of large holders, the asset will not move from the dead point.

Technical picture of BTC/USD

On the daily chart, the price of BTC/USD continues to decline, which increases the chances of a decline in the area of $42k-$45k. The asset is moving flat within the two Fibonacci levels of 0.618 and 0.786. At the same time, a confident red candle on December 28 was followed by a less voluminous bearish candle for December 29. This may indicate a gradual weakening of sellers' positions and the possibility of a local reversal to the usual level of $52k. But I assume that in the next day or two, the asset will maintain flat dynamics, after which a reversal or continuation of a downward movement is possible. In general, the technical picture of BTC does not give new food for thought, since without a successful breakdown of $52k, it is not worth counting on a bullish scenario. Bitcoin ends 2021 in a state of uncertainty, but in the first quarter of 2022, we should expect to go beyond the current range and a broad upward movement.