From Coinpedia · By Anjali Belgaumkar
Bitcoin’s two biggest buyers both stepped back last week. US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded their largest weekly outflow in almost four months, and Michael Saylor’s Strategy made its smallest Bitcoin purchase of the year. Yet Bitcoin has held above $80,000 for a full week. One analyst dug into the data to find out who is still buying.
Where Bitcoin stands
Bitcoin was rejected at resistance on Monday after reaching $84,352, then slid to around $81,000 overnight. It has since bounced back above $83,000. Last week’s low, on October 8, was $80,393. Bitcoin is down about 4% from where it started the week. Spot Bitcoin ETFs lost $679 million last week, roughly 8,000 BTC at current prices.
Since launching in January 2024, the ETFs have taken in a net $57 billion, so last week’s outflow is only about 1.2% of that total. Higher bond yields may explain some of the selling. The 10-year US Treasury yield closed at 5.31% last Monday, its highest close of the year, which gives investors a safer alternative.
He also compared it with a much worse stretch earlier this year. From mid-May to early July, the ETFs saw eight straight weeks of outflows totalling about $8.3 billion, more than 12 times last week’s figure. Bitcoin fell from around $80,700 to below $59,000 in that period, a drop of more than 25%. ETFs have also recorded outflows on roughly half of all trading days this year, which he called normal.
Strategy buys stock instead of Bitcoin
Strategy bought just 250 BTC for $21.5 million between October 5 and 11, its smallest purchase of 2026. In the same week, it spent $192.4 million buying back its own STRC preferred shares, almost nine times what it put into Bitcoin.
The company now holds 848,250 BTC at an average cost of $75,444.
Who sold
Much of the selling came from leveraged traders. On Binance, open interest in Bitcoin futures fell from about 97,400 BTC to about 92,400 BTC over the week, a drop of roughly 5%. Funding rates have fallen to near zero, showing that excess leverage has been cleared out.
Not all the data is positive. About 25,000 BTC moved onto exchanges on October 6 alone, and another 5,300 BTC net between October 8 and 11. Coins moving to exchanges can signal that holders are preparing to sell.
Who is buying
The analyst found two forces holding Bitcoin up. The first is spot buyers. On Binance, the share of volume from aggressive buyers was only about 49% on October 7 and 8. From October 9, it flipped to 55.6%, then 52.7%, then 56.3%. Buyers stepped in right after the low, in the spot market rather than in futures.
The second, and the most important, is long-term holders. About 63% of all Bitcoin has not moved in more than a year. “Those coins are not for sale at 83K, and they were not for sale at 80K either,” he said. When ETFs sell 8,000 BTC into a market where most supply is sitting still, the price impact is limited.