Bitcoin sellers cash out $1.5B in profits – Is this the start of a deeper correction?

• Realized Profit surged to $1.5B on the 3rd of June, driven by aggressive selling during Bitcoin’s rally.
• A breach below $104K could drag BTC to $102.7K if the current selling trend continues.

After Bitcoin [BTC] surged to $106.8k over a three-day climb, it swiftly retraced to $105.2K—hinting at profit pressure.

This uptrend failed to materialize after holders and investors decided to sell. Inasmuch, selling pressure has intensified from all market participants.

Profit-taking hits $1.5B in one day

This rising selling activity was observed by Glassnode. According to the data, Entity-Adjusted Realized Profit spiked sharply.

On the 3rd of June alone, BTC clocked three separate hourly surges of $500 million, totaling $1.5 billion in realized profit.

This marks one of the most aggressive waves of profit-taking since the recent rally began.

Naturally, when BTC pushed to new highs, sellers locked in meaningful returns, with the average coin capturing a +16% profit.

This shows that most of those selling are in profitable positions and are getting significant returns.

With prices continuing to surge, fewer than 8% of trading days have been more profitable for investors. This indicates that the market is gradually shifting into profit-taking and holders could continue selling.

Short-term holders lead the exit

The question is: Who is selling at such a high rate?

According to CryptoQuant data, we see that short-term holders are aggressively selling.

The STHs SOPR surged from 0.99 to 1.04, suggesting that, when realized price spiked, it was mostly driven by short-term holders.

In fact, many appear to have closed positions once BTC cleared $106K.

Another reason that STHs are selling is that Bitcoin’s Net Unrealized Profit is also declining.

After BTC pullback from a recent high, the gap between the current market price and average cost basis for STHs shrank. Those who recently acquired BTC are now seeing less profit or making losses.

With these conditions, STHs have decided to sell to close in profit or avoid losses.

Will this wave of selling break $104K?

Undoubtedly, the surge in profit-taking behavior is cause for alarm.

Often, a high selling pressure leads to downward pressure on prices. If STHs continue to take close positions, it could result in Bitcoin making some more losses.

As such, a continued surge in realized profit will see the BTC stock-to-flow ratio dip, resulting in a negative impact on price action.

Thus, the conditions observed here, if prolonged, could see BTC breach its critical support level of $104k and dip towards $102,683.