Did Bitcoin Bottom at $80K? Whale Activity Suggests More Pain Possible

Bitcoin (BTC) slipped to around $79,500 in mid-November after an 11-day slide from roughly $106,000, according to data from CryptoQuant, but a sharp bounce toward $88,000 has traders debating whether the market has just printed a local bottom.

The rebound comes even as large holders continue to offload their BTC, and futures markets show signs of heavy stress that have not been seen since the FTX collapse in 2022.

Futures Flush, Cohort Rotation, and a Fragile Rebound

On-chain analyst Carmelo Alemán wrote that Bitcoin’s latest decline has been shaped by “institutional redistribution” and structural weakness, with the >10,000 BTC and 1,000–10,000 BTC cohorts still net sellers.

These big players, often associated with institutions and large trading firms, have been trimming exposure and locking in profits rather than stepping in as buyers. At the same time, Alemán noted that smaller wallets holding between 0–1 BTC and 1–10 BTC have also been selling over the past 60 days, leaving little support from retail.

The main buyers during the slide have instead been mid-sized wallets holding between 10 and 100 BTC and 100 to 1,000 BTC, which have been steadily accumulating. The analyst argued that this demand helped stabilize prices after Bitcoin fell from around $106,000 to $79,500 in just under two weeks, with the cryptocurrency then rebounding to about $88,000 in the past 48 hours.

Still, he warned that the ongoing distribution from the 1,000–10,000 BTC group is holding back a convincing trend reversal.

Furthermore, futures shared by another market watcher, Darkfost, added another layer of stress. It highlighted that long liquidations on Bitcoin had reached levels not seen since the FTX crash in November 2022, comparing recent wipeouts on October 10, November 14, and November 21 to that period.

Back then, around 10,600 BTC worth of longs were liquidated in a single day, with the market bottoming shortly after. Darkfost argued that the latest cascade shows how heavily leveraged the market still was and that the recent washout has left conditions “cleaner” and possibly more attractive for fresh entries.

From a spot perspective, BTC is now trading around $88,000, up by about 1% over the past 24 hours but down about 2% on the week and 21% in the last month, according to CoinGecko data. The asset also remains around 30% below its October 6 all-time high above $126,000, reflecting a deep correction within an otherwise intact higher-timeframe uptrend.

Analysts Split on Whether This is a Cycle Low

Opinion among observers remains divided on whether $79,500 marked a cycle low or just another stop on the way down. Recently, Crypto Dan noted that short-term holders had already capitulated near the $80,000 level, a pattern that has often coincided with local bottoms in this cycle.

However, his counterpart CryptoOnchain pointed to long-term holders distributing around 63,000 BTC, suggesting a major transfer of wealth from old hands to newer entrants near the top.

Meanwhile, commentators like Sykodelic and Michaël van de Poppe drew parallels with the COVID crash in 2020, arguing that markets can recover without revisiting recent lows if momentum improves in the coming weeks. Others, such as “Colin Talks Crypto,” remain cautious, warning that several bear-market signals have already appeared, even if one last push higher is still possible.

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