Bitcoin whales bought $16.7 billion of BTC in two weeks even as ETFs bled a record $4 billion
U.S. institutional demand had its worst month ever in June. Large holders absorbed the selling, marking a divergence that has shown up near past cycle bottoms.
By Shaurya Malwa|Edited by Jamie Crawley
Updated Jul 3, 2026, 11:50 a.m. Published Jul 3, 2026, 11:45 a.m.
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Summary
Large bitcoin holders bought more than 270,000 bitcoin BTC$61,863.80 ($16.7 billion) over the past two weeks, stepping in as U.S. institutions pulled money out at a record pace.
U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) shed $4.06 billion in June, their worst month since listing, past the previous record of $3.56 billion set in February 2025.
The outflows pushed the funds into the red for 2026 as a whole for the first time, and these products finally recorded a $221 million inflow on Thursday.
Large wallets, often called whales, went the other way, analysts at crypto exchange Bitfinex shared with CoinDesk in a Friday note. They added more than 270,000 BTC over two weeks while the spot premium, a gauge of how hard U.S. buyers are bidding, stayed negative, meaning the buying was not coming from spot desks.
Institutions selling and large holders accumulating at the same time is the pattern that has shown up near past cycle lows, where long-term holders take coins off sellers before any recovery reaches the price.
Solana is the exception among the majors. SOL has risen about 15% since early June, even as bitcoin touched 21-month lows, helped by protocol upgrades and a jump in onchain transfers of tokenized real-world assets, which rose 120% to $8.53 billion.
Bitfinex analysts called the split a “familiar one,” with alts tending to sell off first and recover first.
Not every alt fits that read, however. Optimism and other layer-2 tokens, networks built to take load off Ethereum, are trading near record lows after Base, Coinbase’s network, dropped Optimism’s shared technology, removing the fee-capture argument that propped up their value.
The next inflation reading is the pivot from here. May inflation ran hot at 4.2%, but Warsh’s comment at the ECB’s Sintra forum that inflation risks have eased already gave risk assets a small lift. A softer print would start to shift the rate-path story that has weighed on bitcoin all month, ahead of the Fed’s next meeting.
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