Should Bitcoin investors consider stockpiling

• BTC’s supply on exchanges declined while its supply outside of exchanges increased.
• Selling sentiment was, however, dominant in the derivatives market.

Bitcoin’s [BTC] price has been moving sideways for quite some time now as the coin got comfortable under the $30,000 mark. However, despite the slow-moving price action, MicroStrategy announced its plans to acquire a substantial amount of BTC. 

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MicroStrategy’s actions have often been considered a leading indicator for bitcoin. Will MicroStrategy’s decision to acquire more BTC motivate retail investors to increase their accumulation? 

MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin buying trend looks interesting

An analyst at CryptoQuant, pointed out in a recent analysis about MicroStrategy’s BTC buying trend. The company announced an additional purchase of 467 bitcoins, increasing the company’s assets under management to 152,800 units. These coins were purchased by MicroStrategy for a total of $4.53 billion, or an average price of $29,672 per coin.

MicroStrategy has upped its purchase rate throughout this year, acquiring a total of 20,300 BTC. As per the analysis, compared to 2022, when the company added 8109 BTC to its balance sheet, the year-on-year growth by August 2023 exceeded 150%.

Source: CryptoQuant

MicroStrategy made this decision to increase accumulation ahead of BTC’s upcoming halving. Historically, BTC’s price has always reached new highs a few months after halvings. For reference, after the 2020 halving, Bitcoin experienced a phenomenal rise in late 2020 and early 2021, breaking previous records and producing a rally of about 600% in just under 7 months.

Considering the growth potential, MicroStrategy might have tapped the opportunity to acquire more coins while the king of cryptos’ price remained below the $30,000 mark. 

Are retail investors buying Bitcoin?

While institutional investors increased their holdings, a look at Bitcoin’s metrics revealed that retail investors were also accumulating. As per Santiment’s chart, BTC’s supply on exchanges declined while its supply outside of exchanges increased.

This metric suggested that the coin was under buying pressure. Moreover, whale activity around BTC also remained high, which looked optimistic. 

Source: Santiment

Read Bitcoin’s [BTC] Price Prediction 2023-24

BTC’s exchange reserve also declined, further establishing the fact that investors were buying the coin. However, the buying pressure might not affect BTC’s price positively in the short term. Its SOPR was red, which meant that more investors were selling at a profit.

Things in the derivatives market also looked bearish, as BTC’s taker buy/sell ratio was red. At press time, BTC was trading at $29,372.01 with a market capitalization of over $571 billion.

Source: CryptoQuant