Who sells in a Bitcoin bull market: veteran holders (1y+) move about 3 million BTC a year
A Bitcoin top doesn't arrive because everyone sells at once. According to our node's weekly snapshots, every bull run moves about 3 million BTC that had sat still for more than a year, spread over many months. What changes from one cycle to the next is when that selling slows down and how old the coins are.
Between September 2020 and September 2021, 3.18 million BTC that had gone untouched for more than a year changed hands. That is 27.1% of all veteran coins at the start of the period, according to UTXO set snapshots from our Bitcoin Core node [1]. The next cycle produced almost the same figure: 3.04 million between November 2023 and November 2024.
The share of supply older than one year, the one shown in the HODL waves, only counts the net balance: what leaves minus what comes in. We covered its path through each cycle in our HODL waves guide. The question here is different: how much really moved, when, and how old it was.
How we measure gross spending by long-term holders
The same arithmetic separates the newcomers. Coins that turn one during the period swell the cohort and hide part of the outflow:
| 12 months | Veteran coins that moved | % of cohort | Coins that joined | Net change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 2019 → Aug 2020 | 1.72 million BTC | 17.2% | 3.42 million | +1.70 million |
| Sep 2020 → Sep 2021 | 3.18 million | 27.1% | 1.60 million | −1.59 million |
| Nov 2021 → Nov 2022 | 1.46 million | 14.3% | 4.02 million | +2.56 million |
| Nov 2023 → Nov 2024 | 3.04 million | 22.0% | 1.77 million | −1.27 million |
| Oct 2024 → Oct 2025 | 2.98 million | 22.9% | 2.31 million | −0.67 million |
The table shows why the net share is misleading. In the year of the 2021 rally, veterans moved twice what the net balance suggests, because coins bought in 2019 and 2020 were turning one at the same time. And bear years aren't years when nobody sells: 14.3% of the cohort moved anywya, but far more came in.
2020-2021: fast selling that slowed before the top
Spending peaked that cycle in the window from August 2020 to August 2021: 28.1% of veterans moved, 3.29 million BTC [1]. That is the period when the price went from about $10,000 to above $63,000 in April 2021.
After that, the pace collapsed. From August 2021 to August 2022 only 14.7% moved, and in the run-up to the November top the 1y+ share had alredy stopped falling: from 53.41% on August 1 it rose to 54.37% on November 7 [1]. The price peaked when most of the selling was already over.
The oldest coins barely took part. The five-year-plus band grew throughout the bull run, from 4.10 million BTC in June 2020 to 4.44 million in January 2022 [1]. The selling came from the one-to-five-year bands: coins bought at the 2017 top, in the 2018 bear market and during the 2019 recovery.
2023-2025: two years of selling and older coins
The last cycle started with veterans at a record: on November 26, 2023, 70.86% of supply had been still for more than a year, the highest level in our series, which starts in January 2018 [1]. From there the selling lasted longer than in 2021. Instead of one year of heavy spending there were two almost back to back, with more than 22% of the cohort moving in each.
And this time much older coins moved too:
- The five-year-plus band shrank. It went from 6,296,182 BTC on February 18, 2024 to 6,003,032 BTC on September 7, 2025, a net drop of 293,150 BTC [1]. Coins turning five join that band every week, so for it to shrink, outflows have to beat inflows.
- More spending of coins older than three years. Between November 2023 and November 2025, 24.6% of coins that were more than three years old moved, against a maximum of 18.5% in any two-year window of the previous cycle [1].
- More coin days destroyed. Coin Days Destroyed measures BTC spent multiplied by the days it had been idle. Its daily median, which a single extreme day can't drag around, was 9.4 million BTC-days in 2021, 9.8 million in 2024 and 11.6 million in 2025, the highest since 2017 [1].
The selling didn't stop at the top either. The 1y+ share stood at 61.97% just before the October 6, 2025 peak and kept falling afterwards, although much of November's drop isn't what it looks like, as the next section shows.
Moving isn't selling: three cases behind the same data
The node sees coins being spent, not who receives them. Four of the six days with the most Coin Days Destroyed in our entire series show it:
- May 28, 2024, 518 million BTC-days, the series record. That day Mt. Gox moved 141,686 BTC to new wallets. Its former CEO, Mark Karpelès, said it was about preparing the distribution to creditors and that "there is no imminent sale of bitcoins happening" [2]. We cover it in our piece on the Mt. Gox deadlines.
- July 4, 2025, 420 million BTC-days. A whale moved 80,000 BTC that had sat in its wallets since 2011. This time it was a sale: on July 25 Galaxy announced it had completed "the sale of more than 80,000 bitcoin" for "a Satoshi-era investor" [3].
- November 22 and 23, 2025, 593 million BTC-days combined. Coinbase moved about 800,000 BTC between its own wallets [5]. Its blog described it as a migration "from legacy internal wallets to new internal wallets", planned in advance and unrelated to price [4]. In our series, the 1y+ supply fell by 498,404 BTC that week.
The first two together account for about 216,000 of the 293,150 BTC lost by the five-year-plus band, three quarters of the total: 128,265 BTC in the Mt. Gox week and 87,478 in the whale's week [1]. Only one of them was a sale.
What long-term holders keep
Even at peak euphoria, most don't sell. Just before the 2025 top, 12.35 million BTC had still been unmoved for over a year, 61.97% of supply [1]. Before the 2021 top it was 54.37%.
After the top the net balance flipped, but gross spending didn't vanish. From October 2025 to October 2026, 2.61 million veteran BTC moved and 2.95 million joined, so the cohort grew [1]. Even after roughly stripping out the half million from the Coinbase migration, about 2.1 million remain, above the 1.46 million in the year after the 2021 top.
As of November 12, 2026, using the 155-day cutoff we apply to separate long-term from short-term holders, the latest snapshot — the one from the 8th — splits supply into 16.27 million BTC for the former and 3.83 million for the latter. Their average cost is $48,848 and $75,838 respectively, according to the realized price by cohort chart [1]. With the price around $73,500 on that same November 12, recent buyers remain a little below their cost. Live figures are in Supply and holders.
A phase signal, not a date
The two measured cycles agree on the basics: veteran spending surges during the rally, lasts many months and isn't a sudden mass exit. It isn't even exclusive to bull markets. Between November 2018 and November 2019, with the bounce to $12,933 in June, 26.6% of the cohort moved [1].
But it doesn't date the top. In 2021 the peak came with the selling already slowing, and in 2025 with it still under way. What it does show is the phase. Almost every 12-month window with under 15% spending ends between late July 2022 and February 2024, the accumulation years after the 2021 top. The highest ones always include a strong rally: 2019, 2020-2021 or 2024-2025.
Before reading it that way, keep its limits in mind:
- Moving isn't selling. A transfer between wallets of the same owner resets coin age just like a sale, as Mt. Gox and Coinbase show. Custody changes at exchanges, custodians and ETFs can look like veteran selling without being so.
- Addresses aren't people. The holder distribution by wallet size groups addresses, and a single exchange address holds coins for thousands of customers, so it can't tell whether whales or small holders sold more.
- Weekly snapshots and two cycles. Windows are measured between snapshots with a few days of slack, the series has a few gaps and covers only two full cycles. We also explain this in holders who aren't selling.
- No sale price by cohort yet. Our SOPR measures realized profit for the whole market, but doesn't split it between short and long-term holders yet.
Sources
Labelled by type.
- NodeWitness, weekly UTXO set snapshots from our node (HODL waves by band in BTC, since January 12, 2018; latest snapshot, block 975,015, from November 8, 2026), daily Coin Days Destroyed computed block by block (through November 11) and daily closing price series, available in HODL waves, SOPR and on-chain activity and realized price by cohort. Data checked on November 12, 2026. (Primary, own data)
- Bitcoin.com News, Mt Gox Moves 141,686 BTC to Three Addresses, Consolidates 142,846 BCH, May 28, 2024. Carries Karpelès's comments. (Secondary, press)
- Galaxy, Galaxy Executes One of the Largest Notional Bitcoin Transactions Ever, July 25, 2025. (Primary, company statement)
- Coinbase, Transparency Update: Coinbase Executes Onchain Fund Migration, November 2025. (Primary, company statement)
- CryptoSlate, No, 800k BTC didn't hit the market: Why exchange internal transfers fooled traders, November 25, 2025. (Secondary, press)
Supply age bands are updated every week, with history back to 2018, in our node's HODL waves, and read together in Supply and holders.
This article is for information only and is not financial advice.
More in Supply and holders
Last updated: November 12, 2026