Bitcoin Price Sinks Below $60k First Time in 50-Days: Miners’ $760M BTC Outflows Behind It?

Bitcoin price tumbled 6% on Monday, June 24th, sinking to a 50-day low of $59,825, as bears seek a 3rd consecutive negative weekly outing. On-chain data shows how swings in BTC miners’ trading activity since the 2024 halving have impacted the ongoing market trends.

BTC Sinks Below $60k First Time in 50 Days

The volatility surrounding the global cryptocurrency markets heightened on Monday, June 24th. Bitcoin dominated headlines as it tumbled below the $60,000 milestone price level for the first time in 53 days, dating back to March 2, 2024.

The yellow patch in the chart above shows how BTC price dipped 7% within the 24-hour timeframe. The pioneer cryptocurrency dropped from the peak of $64,491 recorded on Sunday, June 23rd, to bottom out at the $59,825 level on Monday.

Looking closer, the 7% downtrend in the last 24 hours means that the Bitcoin price has now succumbed to a staggering 17% dip since the ongoing correction phase began around June 7, in the aftermath of the hawkish Non-Farm Payrolls (NFP) figures released by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Why is Bitcoin Price Down Today?

Miners have sold $760 million BTC since April 2024 Halving

As bear traders tightened their grip on short-term momentum in both the Bitcoin spot and derivatives markets on Monday, a closer look at the underlying on-chain data trends reveals a much larger elephant in the room.

Recall that the Bitcoin network executed its 4th quadrennial halving event on April 20, which slashed BTC block rewards from 6.25 BTC to 3.13 BTC.

Amid rising energy costs globally, and a high-interest rate burden, the majority of Bitcoin miners have since resorted to selling off huge portions of their reserves to offset running costs.

CryptoQuant’s miner reserves chart below tracks daily changes in BTC balances held by recognized Bitcoin mining firms and mining pools such as RIOT and Marathon Digital. The daily swings in the aggregate data below helps to track the miners’ sell-offs or accumulation trends in real-time.

The chart above shows that Bitcoin miners cumulative reserves rose to 1,828,622 BTC on April 23. But barely 3-days after the halving, the miners entered a selling frenzy, capitalizing on the rising prices as demand from the newly-approved Bitcoin ETFs propelled BTC to retest its $72,000 all-time highs by May 21.

However, at the time of writing on June 24, just over 60-days on from the Bitcoin halving date, the Bitcoin miners have cut their reserves to an all time-lows around 1,817,006 BTC.

Evidently, Bitcoin miners have sold 11,616 BTC from their reserves between April 23 and June 24. When valued the Bitcoin’s 50-day Simple Moving Average price of $65,449, the miners have effectively unloaded over $760 million worth of BTC on the markets over the last two months.

When miners persistently sell-off such large amounts of their reserves and newly-mined coins over a long-period, it dilutes market supply, and dampens  confidence among other strategic investors within the ecosystem.

Inevitably, as the Bitcoin ETF inflows dried up after the US Fed opted against an H1 2024 rate cut as widely-anticipated by Wall Street, the negative price impact of the Bitcoin miners persistent sell-off has become more prominent over the last 3 weeks.

Hence, the Bitcoin miners $760 million sell-off that has ensued since April 23 and June 24 has played a pivotal role in driving BTC price to a 50-day low of $59,825 on Monday, June 24.