According to Bitcoin (BTC) on-chain data received on Tuesday, the top cryptocurrency is poised to initiate the second rally of its current market cycle. While the digital asset has stayed firm over the past week – up a modest 0.3 percent – some data points suggest that a rally may not be too far.
Bitcoin long-term holder supply falls
During a bull market, the so-called ‘whales’ tend to sell, while retail investors end up buying the underlying asset close to the top. Essentially, the whales sell their holding that they had been accumulating at the peak of the bear market.
For the uninitiated, a Bitcoin whale is an individual, institution, or wallet that holds a very large amount of Bitcoin, giving it the potential to influence market liquidity and price movements through large transactions.
Because of their significant holdings, traders monitor whale activity to gather information into the overall market sentiment. For BTC, any wallet holding more than 1,000 coins is considered a whale.
In past bull cycles, BTC long-term holders (LTH) typically sold a portion of their holdings in the first rally, followed by increasing their holdings during subsequent declines, resulting in the triggering of the second rally.
The first rally of the current cycle started back in January 2023, and went on until at least December 2025. During this process, LTH repeatedly bought and sold BTC. Subsequently – during the decline – they increased their supply by buying far more than their selling amount.
As of August 2026, the trend of increasing LTH supply has come to a standstill. In fact, there has been a gradual decrease in holdings, pointing toward the start of a fresh rally.
For historical context, in the 2013 cycle, the gap between the first and second rally was 8 months. In the 2017 cycle, it was 17 months, while in the 2021 cycle, it was 16 months.
In the current cycle, 31 months have passed since the first rally, meaning that it is a completely different pattern from previous cycles. The second rally was delayed as spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) were launched, institutional funds flowed in, and buying by new whales continued.
What lies ahead for BTC?
As BTC remains range-bound in the low $60,000 zone, exchange data shows that things are starting to pick pace. According to data received on Tuesday, BTC buyers are slowly re-entering into the fray, especially on Binance in the futures market.
Further, some influx of liquidity, coupled with a quick drop to $60,000 to liquidate late longs could just be the recipe for BTC to embark on its next rally.
