Bitcoin’s 2025 recap – 3.3% more retail buys while whales stepped back

Bitcoin’s [BTC] holder dynamics in 2025 have been interesting, to say the least. The result, is lesser chaos and more importance on where capital moves within the system.

How does that affect BTC as we step into the new year?

What happened?

Per Santiment data, wallets holding under 0.1 BTC increased their holdings by roughly 3.3% since July. Meanwhile, wallets holding between 10 and 10,000 BTC added just 0.36% over the same period.

Large holders bought into the run-up toward the yearly high, then trimmed exposure as prices peaked. Retail, meanwhile, kept buying dips.

Bitcoin continued to flow out of exchanges for much of 2025, which means they’re being held long-term. This is even as prices stayed range-bound; so there’s a disconnect between supply conditions and price.

What’s different this time?

Despite the retail buying activity, Bitcoin’s price action was nothing to write home about. One possible reason why, is where capital lies in wait.

ERC-20 stablecoin supply climbed through the second half of the year, so that money stayed within crypto. Just… on standby.

Trading activity also increasingly moved away from spot markets. Derivatives volumes dominated, and OI became important to short-term moves. This replaced organic spot demand with instability caused by leverage.

Read between the lines

Price swings, too, were often amplified by forced position unwinds. This is especially during downside moves late in the year.

If anything, this has furthered the idea that Bitcoin’s market structure is now influenced by positioning too.

Going into 2026…