Bitcoin HODL Waves ‘Anomaly’ Raises Doubt Over July Bear-Market Bottom

Bitcoin (BTC) buyers avoided “buying the dip” as BTC price fell to $57,800 in July, analysis reports.

Key points:

• The Bitcoin HODL Waves metric showed that buyers did not rush to enter the market as BTC/USD fell below $58,000 at the start of July.
• A single whale may have been among the only dip-buyers at the time, said analyst Willy Woo.
• Analysis continued to warn that the bear market shows no concrete signs of structural shift based on current price action.

Willy Woo: Bitcoin bottom buyer could be lone whale

Data from Bitcoin’s HODL Waves metric shows an unusually muted reaction to the most recent macro lows.

HODL Waves group the BTC supply by how long coins have remained dormant in their wallets, plotting each group over time to create the chart’s signature wave-like pattern. The newest supply, coins dormant between one and seven days, offers insight into investor buying activity following key BTC price events.

On July 1, BTC/USD briefly dropped below $58,000, reaching its lowest levels since September 2024. On that day, the portion of the supply dormant between one and seven days stood at 1.97%, per data from Look Into Bitcoin. The figure increased only marginally in the days after, reaching a mere 2.35% on July 5.

For onchain analyst Willy Woo, this lack of onchain movement stands out among long-term BTC price lows. Previously, he noted, buyers rushed to buy new lows — a knee-jerk reaction absent in July.

“Whoever bought the bottom did it slowly. Possibly even a single whale,” he wrote in a post on X this week, describing the event as an “anomaly.”

Woo acknowledged that the interpretation was not infallible, with institutional investment vehicles possibly impacting the HODL Waves data.

“I haven’t found any other thesis to explain the anomaly apart from slow steady buying by all investors involved this implies it’s a handful of buyers because if it was many they tend to act like a herd around price action and create spikes in the buying pattern,” he added.

Misgivings over bear-market floor remain

The findings add to the debate around whether July marked Bitcoin’s latest bear-market bottom.

Related: Bitcoin bear market ‘over’ as price metric copies 2023 recovery: CryptoQuant CEO

As Cointelegraph reported, opinions diverged significantly as BTC/USD rebounded above $80,000, with previous BTC price cycles dictating the need for a new macro low in the coming months.

In his latest analysis, trader and analyst Rekt Capital warned that the structure of the bear market ostensibly remains intact in the form of a series of lower highs within a broader downtrend.

“At this very moment, Bitcoin is positioned for a repeat of bearish price history. However, Bitcoin has a few more days to turn things around before the new Weekly Close, if it can. A Weekly Close below ~$78300 could set price up for a breakdown like in May,” he wrote on Thursday.

August, meanwhile, saw a rebound in buyer appetite, with the US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) seeing $3.8 billion in net inflows over a three-week period.