Institutions Dump BTC, Eye Ethereum Instead

Bitcoin wavers below $111,000, caught between macroeconomic uncertainty and unfavorable technical signals. While investors scrutinize upcoming indicators likely to guide US monetary policy, the pressure intensifies. Institutional capital outflows, tensions in derivatives products, and weakened sentiment indicators increase distrust. The market freezes in anticipation, exposed to latent volatility.

Support at $108,000 tested

Since its sharp drop below $111,000 last Friday, Bitcoin has been oscillating within a narrow range of 2.3 %, signaling a clear slowdown in bullish momentum.

While this inertia coincides with the closure of regulated markets for Labor Day in the United States, it does not mask deeper technical fragility signs.

Indeed, $390 million worth of leveraged long positions could be liquidated if the BTC price falls below $107,000, a level now under close watch. The CoinGlass platform confirms that these positions are particularly vulnerable to a new correction.

Recent technical signals illustrate this increasing pressure on critical support :

• The annualized premium of 30-day Bitcoin futures contracts is currently 7 %, a neutral level between 5 % and 10 %, with no improvement since the previous week ;

• The Deribit options market shows a 7 % premium on put options compared to calls, typical of sustained bearish sentiment ;

• $127 million net outflows were recorded in spot Bitcoin ETFs last Friday, signaling institutional disengagement ;

• Bitcoin has decorrelated from gold, which has gained 2.1 % since Friday, reinforcing the idea of a weakening hedge role.

Thus, the absence of bullish momentum, combined with manifest caution in derivatives markets, fuels increased mistrust. If the $108,000 zone breaks, the current market structure could reveal a risk of rapid destabilization, especially as institutional capital seems already to be initiating preventive withdrawal.

Toward a rebalancing in favor of Ether ?

In this climate of nervousness, movements by certain whales further blur the outlook. Indeed, a long-term investor, having held Bitcoin positions for more than five years, has started a major strategic repositioning.

On August 21, this player sold $4 billion in BTC via the decentralized Hyperliquid platform, turning toward Ether (ETH).

Nicolai Sondergaard, analyst at Nansen, specifies that this decision reflects a form of “rotation” of assets, in a context where altcoins, especially ETH, benefit from growing accumulation by corporate actors. This move reinforces the hypothesis of sectoral reallocation within the crypto market itself.

At the same time, exogenous elements amplify distrust around Bitcoin. The yield on 20-year UK government bonds has reached an unprecedented peak since 1998, a sign of lost confidence in fiat currencies and anticipation of inflationary tensions.

While these data mainly concern traditional markets, their knock-on effect cannot be ignored in an increasingly interconnected crypto universe linked to macroeconomic dynamics.

This conjunction of elements creates an unprecedented situation: whales, traditionally guarantors of BTC stability, are shifting toward perceived more promising assets, while technical indicators signal increasing downward pressure. In the short term, markets will be focused on the US employment report due this Friday. Weakening employment could serve as a catalyst for risky assets, reinforcing anticipation of an imminent rate cut by the Fed. However, in the medium term, the gradual shift of capital toward Ether may indicate a structural reshaping of balances within the crypto ecosystem.