Small retail investors are actively buying Bitcoin again

Holders of 10 to 10,000 Bitcoins actively accumulated the asset from February 23 to March 3, when the price fluctuated in the range of $62 900–$69 600, according to Santiment. When the Bitcoin price rose above and reached the $74 000 mark, these investors began to take profits. According to analysts, they have already sold about 66% of the recently purchased coins.

At the same time, small investors holding less than 0.01 Bitcoin on their crypto wallets, on the contrary, started increasing their positions. Santiment analysts emphasize that a situation where small retail investors buy an asset while so-called "whales" sell usually signals that the market correction is not yet over.

On Saturday, March 7, Bitcoin dropped below $68 000. The price decline coincided with a record outflow of funds from American spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) for Bitcoin: according to the analytics platform Farside Investors, investors withdrew $348.9 million from 11 funds in one day. This is the largest outflow since February 12.

Bitcoin's decline also led to a new decrease in the Fear and Greed Index by six points, down to 12, which corresponds to the "extreme fear" zone.

Crypto investment company ZX Squared Capital founder CK Zheng (CK Zheng) linked the current drop in the first cryptocurrency to the Middle East war. In his opinion, escalation of the conflict could reduce Bitcoin prices by another 30% by the end of the year amid the overall worsening of the financial markets.

Meanwhile, Vetle Lunde (Vetle Lunde), head of research at brokerage firm K33 Research, believes that the worst phase of the decline is already behind and the market may soon turn around.