Bitcoin Sales from Miners Spike 600% One Week After the Halving

Bitcoin sales from miners have jumped six-fold since the halving, while exchanges continue to see their reserves dwindle.

Miners have now entered a new wave of Bitcoin selling despite the lack of a definite move in Bitcoin’s price, data shows. Miner revenue has also dropped following block rewards halving, down to 6.25 from 12.5 bitcoins.

At the same time, there has been an increase in the number of people moving crypto assets from exchanges. Data shows that Bitcoin reserves on exchanges have hit levels last seen when Bitcoin’s price bottomed in 2018, making this the lowest amount of Bitcoin reserves in over 18 months.

Miners increase sales six times

According to CryptoQuant, outflows from mining pools over the past five days have hit 600%. The crypto resource platform looked to combine Bitcoin sales from mining pools, and says that data analysis up to May 20 puts this week’s outflow at 7,426 bitcoins. In the period immediately after the halving, miners sold 1,066 bitcoins.

Mining pool outflow figures and trajectory over the past five days mirror what was witnessed in the week leading to halving. As the Bitcoin price surged to hit $10,000, miners increased their sales of minted coins from around 2,100 bitcoins to 5,000 bitcoins a day up to the third halving.

Waves of increased selling by miners have previously coincided with a dump of Bitcoin. The weekend before the halving, massive sell-off pressure, exacerbated by miners, led to a price crash that slashed $1,200 from the benchmark cryptocurrency’s value.

Although bulls rallied to help fill the CME futures price gap. the increased sell-off by miners has already seen prices tank from a high of $9,966, to lows of $9,355.

Bitcoin reserves on exchanges at 18-month low

Last week, we reported that over $220 million worth of Bitcoin had been moved from centralised exchanges following the halving on May 11.

Data from Glassnode showed that its Bitcoin Exchange Net-Flow model showed that users had taken around 24,000 bitcoins off exchanges between May 12 and May 15.

Before this, exchanges held about 2.3 million bitcoins, worth over $21.7 billion. This figure has now dropped even lower according to data by CryptoQuant. The platform notes that exchanges have seen reserves fall consistently since March, when Bitcoin prices fell to its lowest level since late 2018.

Across 17 of the largest crypto exchanges, Bitcoin reserves have fallen to 1.18 million, worth about $11 billion.