Bitcoin Approaches All-Time Highs as Whale Activity Increases

Bitcoin neared its all-time highs on Dec. 12, coming within 1% as whales absorbed sell-side liquidity. BTC Price Comeback Targets Record Levels Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD climbing back to $102,000 following the Wall Street opening bell. This recovery built on the previous day’s momentum, which saw Bitcoin gain nearly $5,000 in a single green daily candle. Material Indicators, a trading analytics platform, highlighted the role of high-volume traders in the latest rally. “FireCharts binned CVD shows that whales are back to making whale-sized market orders,” the platform noted in an X post. “Now that BTC has reached deeper concentrations of ask liquidity, whales can make those larger market orders without the slippage they would have endured over the previous 2 days when price was moving through a range with thinner liquidity.” An accompanying chart illustrated whale activity and liquidity shifts for the BTC/USDT pair on Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. Sell-Side Pressure and Market Dynamics Despite the bullish surge, popular trader Skew observed that sell-side pressure remained significant enough to limit Bitcoin’s upward potential. “As long as passive buyers continue to slurp we break up eventually,” Skew remarked to followers on X. Meanwhile, The Bitcoin Researcher struck a cautious tone, emphasizing the need for a reset in short-term holder (STH) profitability to sustain price growth. Using the market value to realized value (MVRV) metric for STHs—entities holding BTC for up to 155 days—the account explained: “I’d like to see the Short-Term Holder MVRV return closer to its baseline. A rising price without STH-MVRV reset often signals an impending market top—rarely sustainable for long. Reset or not, both outcomes provide clear, but opposite, on-chain signals.”