Bitcoin whales slam brakes on sales as 'Uptober' rally leads to new all-time high

CryptoQuant data indicates that Bitcoin whale selling pressure began to shift in October. On-chain analysis revealed the 30-day percentage change in the amount of Bitcoin held by whales, where the negative values indicate that whales have been creating selling pressure.

On-chain analyst Burak Kesmeci also noted that there has been a decline in whale balances as of September 2025. According to the crypto pundit, the red zone on the chart clearly shows that whales have offloaded a significant amount of Bitcoin over the past 30 days.

Bitcoin hits new all-time high 

The selling pressure by whales is evident in the drop in BTC prices last month, but data shows that whales have started to slow their selling pace in the first days of October.

Cryptoquant researchers suggested that the change may indicate a possible re-accumulation phase, arguing that whales reached a point of selling exhaustion that could support Bitcoin’s short-term uptrend.

The data also showed that some whale addresses are moving their digital assets from exchanges and into self-custody. Lookonchain last week identified wallet 0x982c as having withdrawn 29,029 ETH, worth approximately $118 million, from Kraken. The analytics firm also noted that address Oxa312 pulled 8,695 ETH, worth approximately $39.5 million, from Binance.

OnChain Lens highlighted that another whale scooped up 7,311 ETH at an average price of $4,514. The analytics firm noted that the address later supplied the tokens to Aave for lending. The whale also currently holds 38,275 ETH worth $172.9 million and BTC worth $4.34 million in lending in multiple wallets.

Bitcoin wallet bc1qks also offloaded 620 BTC, worth approximately $76 million, from Binance. Such huge movements suggest large-scale repositioning of capital away from exchanges and signal that whales are expecting further price appreciation.

On-chain data showed that Bitcoin exchange balances dropped to their lowest level in five years. Approximately 170,000 BTC were removed from crypto exchanges in the last 30 days, with the just-concluded week recording the most activity. The shift has pushed the BTC exchange balance below 2.85 million BTC for the first time since January 2021.

At the time of publication, Bitcoin is exchanging hands at around $123,942, up roughly 10.52% in the last 7 days. On-chain data also shows that BTC has surged by nearly 12% in the last 30 days. 

The digital asset also surged to a new all-time high above $125,000, adding to the bullish momentum of “Uptober.” Bitwise Research CEO Hunter Horsley predicted that Bitcoin could reach $200K by the end of the year.

The surge in BTC prices last week came as institutional interest in the digital asset remained strong. A new market report from VanEck revealed that institutional confidence in digital assets continued to grow through September. The report revealed that total holdings in Digital Asset Treasuries (DATs) have surged to more than $135 billion.

Bitcoin DATs and ETFs accumulate more digital assets

Bitcoin Treasuries showed that 14 public treasury companies increased their Bitcoin reserves over the past week alone, while only one reduced its position. Metaplanet made the largest addition of around 5,268 BTC, while Marathon Digital and CleanSpark added 373 and 308 BTC, respectively. 

The largest Bitcoin treasury company, Strategy, also added 196 BTC to its holdings. Bitcoin Treasuries reported that the top 100 public companies jointly hold 1,038,119 BTC as of October 5.

On-chain data revealed that ETFs saw the biggest buying weeks of the year for BTC and ETH. SosoValue data showed that spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $3.24 billion worth of inflows in the just-concluded week, reversing the $902.5 million outflows seen the previous week. 

Spot Ethereum ETFs recorded $1.30 billion in inflows last week, reversing the $795.56 million outflows the previous week. On-chain data confirmed that this week’s ETH inflow number is the largest weekly inflow on record for spot Ethereum ETFs this year.

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