MW Bitcoin briefly tumbles below $75K, but these investors see a buying opportunity

By Gordon Gottsegen

Bitcoin hit its lowest level since the "liberation day" selloff last April

The investors with the most bitcoin are buying more bitcoin.

Bitcoin is trying to recover from a rough weekend.

The benchmark cryptocurrency dropped more than 9% over the last five days, slipping past the $80,000 level and then briefly trading below $75,000.

The CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (BTCUSD) hit an intraday low of $74,553 Sunday night. That was the lowest intraday level since April 7, when the tariff-induced "liberation day" selloff pushed bitcoin to a low of $74,435.56 - the lowest level of 2025.

There's been a "risk-off" mood prevalent in markets lately, and that sentiment has hit bitcoin especially hard. Bitcoin is a volatile asset, and although some investors view it as a store of value or a hedge against the U.S. dollar DXY, investors have been favoring defensive assets like gold (GC00) and silver (SI00) over bitcoin recently.

Yet one group of investors has been responding to bitcoin's tumble by buying at a discount - and it's the same group that already has a massive stash of bitcoin.

"There may be light at the end of the tunnel, as 'whales' appear to be moving in to buy at lower prices than those seen last week. Despite the severe drop in bitcoin's price, whale holdings did not fall; instead, they rose," Samer Hasn, senior market analyst at XS.com, wrote in an email.

Bitcoin "whales" refer to individual owners who hold large amounts of the crypto. Because bitcoin trades on a blockchain, analysts are able to identify individual crypto wallets with thousands of bitcoins.

Hasn noted that according to BGeometrics, there were 1,961 wallets holding between 1,000 and 10,000 bitcoin last week. At today's levels, this translates to roughly $78 million to $780 million worth of bitcoin.

Those 1,961 wallets represent an increase from the two-year low of 1,903 reached late last year. It's also the highest level seen since last November.

The number of crypto wallets holding between 1,000 and 10,000 bitcoins has been increasing.

"While we aren't yet seeing massive on-chain buildups, whales at least appear to have ceased distribution and shifted toward gradual accumulation," Hasn told MarketWatch.

Vasily Shilov, chief business development officer at crypto-exchange aggregator SwapSpace, said that the volume of bitcoin transferred to exchanges has fallen to around $10 billion per month, which is much lower than the $50 to $80 billion reached in recent bitcoin peaks. This volume reflects the quantity of bitcoin that holders are looking to sell in order to cash out - meaning that although the price of bitcoin is dropping, not as many people are looking to sell their holdings.

"This means there is currently no significant selling volume from bitcoin holders, who typically deposit coins onto exchanges before major selloffs," Shilov said in an email. "This suggests that the current price decline is likely being driven either by actions from major exchanges and derivatives platforms or by a lack of demand, rather than by panic selling from long-term investors."

But even with bitcoin whales buying more, that doesn't necessarily mean the selloff will end. It may stop the bleeding for now, but demand across the board will have to pick back up for prices to stabilize.

"Whales represent the last line of defense; if their support collapses, we may witness a further bearish move toward the $66,000 mark for bitcoin," Hasn said.

-Gordon Gottsegen

This content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 02, 2026 12:51 ET (17:51 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.