Bitcoin Whale Exchange Outflows Spike: Sign Of Dip Buying?

On-chain data shows the Bitcoin whales have ramped up their exchange outflows recently, a potential sign that big-money hands are accumulating.

Bitcoin Whale Exchange Outflows Have Hit The 3.2% Mark

In a new post on X, Glassnode lead research analyst CryptoVizArt has talked about the latest trend in the Exchange Whales Outflow indicator. This metric tracks, as its name suggests, the Bitcoin withdrawals being made by whale entities from centralized exchanges. Whales are defined as investors carrying more than 1,000 tokens of the asset in their balance.

The indicator doesn’t simply measure the total amount of outflows being made by entities of this size, however, but rather the ratio between them and the total BTC reserve sitting on exchanges.

When the value of the metric rises, it means the whales are taking out a higher amount of the exchange supply to self-custodial wallets. Such a trend can be a sign that the big-money hands are looking to hold into the long term, which is something that can be bullish for the asset’s price.

On the other hand, the indicator going down suggests whales are reducing their withdrawals. Depending on whether they are ramping up inflows, this kind of trend can be either neutral or bearish for the cryptocurrency.

Now, here is the chart shared by CryptoVizArt that shows the trend in the 30-day simple moving average (SMA) of the Bitcoin Exchange Whales Outflow over the last few years:

As displayed in the above graph, the Bitcoin Exchange Whales Outflow has witnessed a surge recently, indicating that whales have been increasing their outflows relative to the exchange supply.

Currently, the 30-day SMA value of the indicator is sitting at 3.2%, which is the highest level since late 2024. The rise in the metric to this level has arrived as the cryptocurrency’s spot price has gone through a notable drawdown.

Given the timing, it’s possible that the outflows are an indication of dip-buying behavior from the whales. “This mirrors the structure seen in H1 2022, when whales accumulated for several months and in multiple waves, before the next bull market began,” noted the analyst.

In the 2022 bear market, it took a while before Bitcoin reached its bottom. It now remains to be seen how long whale accumulation will have to go this time around for the cryptocurrency to arrive at a cycle low.

BTC Price

Bitcoin recovered above $71,000 earlier, but the coin has since seen a retrace as its price is now back at $68,000.