Bitcoin whales are buying BTC, showing that a bullish trend is coming.
On the other hand, Bitcoin miners are facing drops in revenue due to increased difficulty and falling transaction volumes.
Central banks are buying gold at record levels, but Bitcoin has still outperformed it in 2024.
September has traditionally been bearish for Bitcoin, but there are signs of an incoming upside.
Retail investors are under pressure to hold onto their Bitcoin amid the price fluctuations.
The crypto market, with its whales, sharks, and retail investors, has experienced several shifts over the last few months.
With September being a historically bearish month for Bitcoin, the whales are seemingly bent on adding massive amounts of the cryptocurrency to their holdings.
This trend comes amid growing pressure on retail traders, who find it hard to hold on to their coins considering the wild price fluctuations that rocked August.
Let's review some of Bitcoin's biggest developments and their implications for the market as a whole.
According to insights from Santiment in a recent tweet, Bitcoin whales with more than 100 Bitcoins in their wallets have been on a buying spree.
The number of whales in this cohort has even hit a 17-month high, with over 283 wallets crossing the mark in August alone.
As it stands, the total number of whales in this cohort has hit a high of 16,120—a level not seen since early 2023.
This increase in whale activity means that the few large cryptocurrency holders are doubling their investment and might see the cryptocurrency's current price as an attractive entry point.
Santiment also notes that this rise in whale activity coincides perfectly with increasing pressure on Bitcoin's smaller traders. Especially how many of them started to sell their holdings when prices dipped from over $62,000 to around $58,000 in late August.
Interestingly, Vivek Sen, the founder of Bitgrow Lab, mentioned in a recent tweet that the whale-buying trend typically occurs right before Bitcoin makes a new all-time high.
On the other hand, while the whales are busy buying Bitcoin, miners are facing one of the most challenging periods in history.
According to data from Bitbo, miner revenues have dropped to $827.56 million, a 10.5% decrease from July.
Revenue (yellow line) dropping
This also comes in as the miners’ worst performance since September 2023.
But why is this metric dropping?
The most significant factors affecting this effect include the network's falling transaction volumes and the increasing mining difficulty.
In fact, the network's difficulty hit an all-time high of 89.47 trillion in August, up from 86.87 trillion in July.
This means that the Bitcoin network is taking up more power to run, and the Bitcoin miners are starting to seek external help by allocating their computing power to artificial intelligence tasks.
However, Bitcoin has managed to keep its cool, considering that central banks worldwide have been on a gold-buying spree.
According to data from The Kobeissi Letter, these entities bought a staggering 483 metric tonnes of gold in the first half of 2024.
This, according to the macroeconomics portal, is 5% higher than the previous record of 460 tonnes set in the first half of 2023.
Record Gold Purchases Amid Economic Uncertainty
The National Bank of Poland, the Reserve Bank of India, and the Central Bank of Turkey led this gold buying round, with interest increasing from nations like China, India, Russia, and Saudi Arabia.
However, despite the gold rush, Bitcoin has managed to outperform the precious metal in 2024 after gaining a small but impressive 37% year-to-date.
This is much higher compared to gold's 23% rise.
Overall, Bitcoin's price performance for September hangs in the balance, according to data from Coinglass, especially with the ongoing bearishness trend.
Bitcoin’s monthly performances
According to the chart above, Bitcoin has only seen three bullish September since 2013, and all eyes remain on the flagship cryptocurrency's performance over the next 30 days.
Disclaimer: Voice of Crypto aims to deliver accurate and up-to-date information but will not be responsible for any missing facts or inaccurate information. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile financial assets, so research and make your own financial decisions.