Markets
What to know:
- In 2025 alone, more than 470,000 BTC, worth a cool $50 billion, decided to leave their five-year slumber. That’s the second largest amount on record, right behind 2024.
- 2024 and 2025 together saw a combined $104 billion worth of “old man” bitcoin finally getting some action. That’s 78% of all BTC older than five years, waking up from their digital nap.
Ah, the thrill of the chase. For every buyer, there’s a seller-except in 2025, those sellers seem to be unusually active (maybe it’s the hot crypto summer, who knows?).
Bitcoin’s price has mostly been flipping around like a coin (how ironic), stuck in a 20% range around $100,000 since the start of the year. What does that mean? Absolutely nothing… or everything, depending on how much you’re sweating over it.
The general storyline has been that “OGs” (the original bitcoin whales) have finally decided to cash out after holding for years. But how much of it has actually changed hands? According to analyst James Check (aka Checkmate, because why not add a little flair to your name?), the total amount of “dormant” bitcoin re-entering the market in 2025 has already reached 4.655 million BTC. That’s over $500 billion worth of old coins waking up and saying, “Alright, let’s make some noise.”
- 1.91 million BTC from holders who’ve been in the “I’ll get to it later” camp for over two years.
- 844,000 BTC from those who took a brief nap between 1 and 2 years.
- 1.9 million BTC from the “I just woke up, but don’t panic” crowd that’s been dormant for 6-12 months.
So, yeah, Checkmate estimates that we’re looking at $500 billion of revived supply in 2025, just slightly above the $470 billion seen in 2024. But, let’s put this in perspective: in 2024, nearly 7 million BTC made a grand reappearance, while this year it’s just 4.655 million. The struggle is real, folks.
Now, why are people suddenly unloading? Well, the $100,000 price tag is more than just a number-it’s a psychological milestone for a lot of these old-timers who are finally cashing out after holding for longer than most of us have held our New Year’s resolutions.
Some of them are diversifying into Gold or AI stocks (the cool kids’ assets), while others are worried about quantum computing (because that’s what we’re all thinking about these days, right?). And, of course, there’s the four-year cycle narrative-Bitcoin is about 18 months post-halving, and as we all know, that’s when long-term holders tend to cash in those sweet, sweet gains.
Galaxy Research is on the same page. According to Alex Thorn, Head of Research at Galaxy, over 470,000 BTC held for more than five years (valued at around $50 billion) has changed hands in 2025. That’s the second-largest transfer on record, just behind 2024. So, combining 2024 and 2025, nearly half of all the BTC older than five years has moved, accounting for a hefty 78% of the BTC moved in dollar terms.
In total, these two years have seen more than $104 billion in long-dormant coins distributed from old, creaky hands to fresh, probably-still-fresh-out-of-college hands.
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2025-11-06 17:44