Institutional investors aren't buying Bitcoin at 50% of all-time highs… for now

Institutions are holding their breath when it comes to buying more Bitcoin (BTC), even at $34,000.

According to data on BTC balances held by major exchange Coinbase, not much mass-buying has occurred in recent weeks.

Institutional demand "still low," says analyst

Despite BTC/USD trading at over 50% below its recent all-time highs, there is curiously little interest among many investors in buying up the supply.

Whether retail or institutional, adding Bitcoin to portfolios appears to be simply not as attractive as before, even with a conspicuous “discount.”

“I know this is getting old, but Coinbase Bitcoin exchange balances still continue to go sideways,” researcher Jan Wuestenfeld commented on the data, which was tracked by on-chain analytics service Glassnode.

“If we take that as a proxy for institutional demand is still low…”

Coinbase’s BTC balance saw consecutive steps down throughout 2021. The trend was consistent until mid-May’s price capitulation event when withdrawals conspicuously stopped. Since then, Coinbase has seen only small decreases in its Bitcoin reserves.

As Cointelegraph reported, July is set to see a shake-up in terms of institutional activity thanks to the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust.

In mid-July, a major unlocking event will give a large slice of the investor base a chance to sell their funds. Should they choose to do so, selling pressure is implied, and the potential for Bitcoin's price to slide further down could be the reason why there is currently little interest in buying.

The event is important — once over, selling pressure overall is expected to decrease significantly.

One week, $3.8 billion in realized losses

When it comes to selling behavior, meanwhile, it is conspicuously short-term holders (STRs) who are behind the routs that saw lows of $28,600.

Related: Active Bitcoin miners now ‘unlikely’ sellers thanks to profit boost — Data

As Glassnode noted in the latest of its weekly reports, "The Week On-chain," the mood very much appears to be one of panic selling — new investors are ridding themselves of BTC at a loss.

“A very large volume of coins that were underwater were spent this week,” Glassnode explained.

“Note that almost all Long-Term Holders are in profit and their spending actually offset around $383M in net losses (total realised loss was $3.833B!). Currently only 2.44% of the circulating supply is held by LTHs at an unrealised loss.”