Bitcoin's push toward $80,000 stalled after a wave of short-term-holder selling pushed the price down to $75,568. Binance absorbed the largest short-term inflow since February, but Bitcoin ETFs kept pulling in fresh capital, cushioning the pullback.
Bitcoin reached $79,473 before sellers pushed it back down to $75,568, leaving a long upper wick near the psychological $80,000 barrier. The coin did not retest its prior low of $71,000, however, and now trades around $76,248, in the upper part of its recent expansion range.
That positioning suggests buyers are still absorbing supply even as short-term momentum cools. The RSI reading of 68.73 points to easing overbought pressure, and the MACD indicator has not yet crossed below zero, though its narrowing gap could mean slower gains ahead. If price reclaims $77,015, momentum could build again toward the $79,473 peak.
Short-term holders drive the sell-off
A three-day, 23% price increase brought 53,000 coins onto exchanges, signaling profit-taking alongside the rally. Binance alone received 17,800 BTC, its largest short-term-holder inflow since February, and every one of those coins came from wallets that had held Bitcoin for less than a day.
Long-term holders sent nothing to exchanges, keeping this bout of selling separate from any broader distribution. At the same time, Binance's Spot Delta fell rapidly toward -$11.6 billion even as price climbed, a gap that helps explain why the rally could not hold. The rally therefore stays liquid but structurally narrow, driven by speculative turnover rather than committed accumulation.
ETF inflows offset the exchange selling
The sell-heavy activity on Binance did not spread across every channel of spot demand. Between August 17 and 21, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs pulled in $1.92 billion as investors kept buying. Daily demand rose from $297.56 million to $606.29 million before easing to $307.45 million. Cumulative inflows climbed from $52.09 billion to $53.71 billion over the same stretch.
That flow leaves the spot market more fragmented than Binance's aggressive selling alone would suggest. Sustained ETF inflows remain the key variable for whether Bitcoin's rally can extend toward $80,000.
Source: AMBCrypto
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