Since hitting a new all-time high, Bitcoin (BTC) price has been unable to flip the $19,400 level to support. This is likely due to the possibility that whales are selling aggressively in the $19,400 to $19,600 range to prevent the all-time high from being breached. Above the record high, there is little resistance until a new ceiling is achieved.

Bitcoin whale inflows into exchanges. Source: CryptoQuant

Whales keep selling each time BTC nears the all-time high

Data from both CryptoQuant and Whalemap show that the $19,500 level is an important area for whales.

First, there are large whale clusters at around $19,500. This means that whales bought BTC here and did not move their holdings, which might make it a take profit region.

Furthermore, whale inflows to exchanges have been increasing as the price of Bitcoin surpassed $19,500. This shows that whales are strongly selling or shorting $19,500 and beyond.

A pseudonymous trader known as “Byzantine General” also emphasized that there are heavy sell orders on Binance. He noted that the $19,500 level would be a difficult resistance area for buyers to break.

What might happen in the short term?

In the near term, analysts are divided on the short-term outlook of BTC. Some say that a major correction could still come, especially if  BTC continues to reject at the $19,500 level.

Ki Young Ju, the CEO of CryptoQuant, said he expects BTC to either move sideways or down in the short term. He wrote:

“I'm long-term bullish, but I think it'll go sideways for a few days or get corrected. I think we can't break $20K in the short-run. I expect it'll break 20k at the end of this year. (I'm not a PA trader tho) In conclusion, OG whales stopped HODLing and I'm short-term bearish.”

Ki pinpointed that Bitcoin whales stopped accumulating Bitcoin at the current price. He explained that it is difficult to segregate institutional bids from spot bids. Still, he said that the timing of the stalling of BTC’s rally and the sell-off from whales match. He added:

“This $20k battle would be $BTC OG whales versus retail investors. And I'm on their side, short-term bearish. I know on-chain data can't tell the inflows of institutional spot bids. But it looks like current BTC whales(OGs) stopped their move that was good for the bull rally.”

Bitcoin (BTC) saw the biggest whale inflows since July, according to data from CryptoQuant. The data coincides with BTC’s continuous rejection at $19,400.