Institutions are accumulating Bitcoin as early holders exit. With supply tightening, a structural price shift may be underway.
A quiet revolution is reshaping the foundations of the Bitcoin market. Early adopters, long-time holders, and opportunistic traders are selling into strength, but the buyers stepping in aren’t speculators. They are institutions—BlackRock, Fidelity, public companies, and sovereign-grade entities—building strategic, long-term positions. Bitcoin’s institutionalization is speeding up, and the long-term implications for its price are profound.
Bitcoin institutionalization
On-chain data from Glassnode backs this shift. Over the past six months, the entity-adjusted unspent realized price distribution (URPD) shows a clear institutional skew in the bitcoin market.
Wallets holding over 100,000 BTC — the mega whales — used to dominate at around the $30,000 level, buying into the 2021 bull run. Now, this cohort’s biggest accumulation is centered around the $74,000–$76,000 price levels, indicating many of these new mega whales are institutions entering in late 2024 or the recent March drawdown.
Large whales holding between 10,000 and 100,000 BTC were most active in the $78,000–$90,000 range and continue to engage near current levels. Meanwhile, smaller but still massive holders holding between 100 and 10,000 BTC dominate the space above $90,000. This pattern reveals a market increasingly controlled by heavyweight players—patient capital with long-term horizons.
Michael Saylor captured the moment succinctly: “People less committed to the long term are exiting… and a whole new class of investors is entering.” And these investors are not traders of bitcoin; they are long-only buyers.
The growth of Bitcoin ETFs offers further evidence. As Bloomberg’s ETF analyst Eric Balchunas pointed out, BlackRock’s IBIT, launched only 1.4 years ago, is already among the top-25 ETFs by assets —a list typically dominated by decades-old funds. “It’s like an infant hanging out with teenagers and twenty-somethings,” he quipped. This meteoric rise underscores the speed at which institutional demand for bitcoin is growing.
The monetary order is broken
This transformation is unfolding amid—and likely accelerated by—a deteriorating macroeconomic backdrop. The US dollar is weakening even as Treasury yields rise, a rare and troubling divergence that signals systemic stress and exposes the limits of legacy monetary solutions. Debt levels are spiraling, and fiscal restraint is nowhere in sight.
Former President Donald Trump’s stance only amplifies fiscal concerns. His “Big Beautiful Bill” is projected to add $2.4 trillion to the U.S. deficit over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office—bringing the country closer to a full-blown debt crisis. The US President’s June 4 post calling to scrap the debt limit entirely further undermines hopes for fiscal discipline. Analysts increasingly warn that monetary easing—through inflation—is now the most likely path forward. In such an environment, Bitcoin’s appeal as a hard asset only grows stronger.
As the CEO of Coinbase, Brian Armstrong put it:
“If the electorate doesn't hold congress accountable to reducing the deficit, and start paying down the debt, Bitcoin is going to take over as reserve currency.”
As institutions pour in and supply tightens, Bitcoin is entering uncharted territory. The age of retail-led volatility is giving way to corporate balance sheets and long-only allocations. This shift isn’t just about new buyers—it’s about a new financial era, and the full consequences of this supply shock have yet to be fully understood.
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