As Bitcoin (BTC) dilly-dallies around the $80,000 price level, something very interesting happened early Friday. Notably, institutions accumulated a massive amount of BTC as retail sold in droves, as indicated by the over-the-counter (OTC) share jumping to 69 percent.
Institutions silently gobbling BTC on OTC venues
Earlier on Friday, Bitcoin tested retail traders’ patience as it continued to trade under the 200-day moving average (MA) price. The following daily chart shows a visual breakdown of the neckline of BTC’s head and shoulders pattern.
To explain, the head and shoulders pattern is a bearish reversal formation that typically appears after an uptrend and signals weakening buying momentum.
The trading pattern consists of three peaks – a higher middle peak (the head) between two lower peaks (the shoulders) – and a breakdown below the neckline confirms potential downside movement.
When looking at the liquidity flow, we see that 69.2 percent – or about $24.81B of the total liquidity – exchanged hands through the OTC market. In comparison, only 30.8 percent – close to $11.05B of liquidity – traded on centralized exchanges.
In simple words, this means that institutional and sophisticated investors are silently absorbing BTC supply outside the public order book. In this way, they are preventing further price dump in the cryptocurrency.
Retail ended up selling close to the bottom
Besides institutions scooping up Bitcoin on OTC platforms, the long-term holder (LTH) and short-term holder (STH) data shows that 96.99 percent of the deposits on the exchanges in the last 24 hours came from STHs.
This shows the classic trading dynamic of capitulation of the weak hands that bet on the asset’s support level breaking down.
The final evidence that seals the aforementioned conclusions is the Institutional Spot Traction (IST) indicator, which detected a very large concentration of capital flow – around 170,287 BTC – moving through the market.
Since this value is far above the 100,000 Bitcoin threshold considered the ‘Whale Dominance’ zone, it suggests that large institutional players or whales are heavily influencing current market activity and absorbing supply from sellers.
Recent developments in the crypto industry confirm institutional interest in the top cryptocurrency. On May 7, JPMorgan stated that Strategy is on its way to accumulate $30B worth of BTC in 2026.
