Bitcoin Sees Largest Exchange Outflow Since April as Institutions Accumulate
On Wednesday, centralized exchanges recorded a massive net outflow of over 17,000 BTC—worth more than $1.6 billion at the market price of $98,600—according to Glassnode data shared by Andrew Dragosch, head of research at Bitwise.
This marks the largest single-day Bitcoin exodus from exchanges since April 2024. Dragosch highlighted the movement on X, stating, “Whales are buying this dip,” suggesting that large investors are accumulating Bitcoin. Typically, when investors move Bitcoin off exchanges into private wallets, it signals an intent to hold long-term—a bullish indicator for the market.
However, analysts caution that blockchain data can sometimes be misleading due to internal transfers between exchange wallets.
Coinbase alone saw net withdrawals of over 15,000 BTC, Dragosch noted. Further analysis by Timechainindex.com revealed that Coinbase split four addresses holding over 20,000 BTC into 60 smaller addresses, potentially indicating major purchases by Bitcoin ETFs or MicroStrategy.
“We have very high certainty that this is a cold wallet,” Glassnode told CoinDesk, reinforcing the likelihood of institutional accumulation.
Meanwhile, on-chain data from CryptoQuant reported that all cryptocurrency exchanges experienced a combined net outflow of 47,000 BTC on Wednesday, with 15,800 BTC attributed to Coinbase.
Despite Bitcoin briefly dropping below $96,800 during late U.S. trading hours on Wednesday, the price rebounded early Thursday. The recovery followed remarks from Eric Trump, son of President Donald Trump, who encouraged the family-linked crypto platform, World Liberty Financial, to make its first Bitcoin investment.
