Mid-Sized Bitcoin Wallets Accumulate 113,950 BTC as Price Approaches Key Resistance

Wallets holding between 100 and 1,000 BTC have added 113,950 Bitcoin since July 15, increasing their combined holdings by 2.22% to 5.24 million BTC, according to data from Santiment. This accumulation phase coincides with Bitcoin briefly touching $87,000 earlier in the week before retracing and stabilizing near $84,000.

This development raises the question of whether durable demand is building a foundation for a breakout, or if this is merely a squeeze-driven bounce that will stall once leverage unwinds.

Not all analysts view this move as a genuine shift in risk appetite. Bernardo Brites, co-founder of Trace Finance, noted that the speed of the recovery was partly driven by a short squeeze, emphasizing that the critical question remains identifying the source of the new capital.

“I wouldn’t read this as a broad return of risk appetite. Bitcoin rallying through a rate hike, $100 oil, and elevated yields suggests some investors are treating it as a hedge against inflation, fiscal and geopolitical risk rather than as a bet on easy money,” Brites said.

This perspective is crucial for those interpreting the current resistance structure as a clean technical setup rather than a macro hedge trade layered on top of traditional technical patterns.

Santiment has tracked this 100-to-1,000-BTC wallet cohort for five years, noting that its activity historically aligns closely with market direction. Periods of heavy accumulation have often preceded or coincided with stronger price movements. The current data indicates that this cohort continued buying through the recovery, suggesting that the rally is not being driven solely by retail flow.

What Bitcoin Needs to Breach the $88,000-$90,000 Resistance?

The technical picture underlying the whale and ETF data is straightforward. Bitcoin reclaimed its 365-day moving average near $80,500, a level it last broke above in March 2023—a move that preceded a significantly larger rally at that time. It also cleared the $76,000-$81,000 supply band that had capped price action for weeks.

The $88,000-$90,000 Bitcoin price band is significant due to the distribution of coin supply in that range, rather than simple round-number psychology. A large concentration of Bitcoin clustered in this area means sellers are likely to appear in size as the price approaches it, which is why the $90,000 target is treated as the next major test.

ETF Demand at the Bitcoin Price Resistance Test

This two-sided framing provides traders with a concrete way to interpret potential outcomes rather than guessing. A continuation of ETF inflows alongside renewed stablecoin supply growth would, in our view, build a stronger base under the rally as it approaches resistance. Conversely, a stall in either metric, particularly a fade in ETF demand while price remains below $88,000, leaves the move vulnerable to giving back gains as leveraged positioning unwinds.

CryptoQuant founder Ki Young Ju has separately argued that this cycle is more likely to produce a 3-to-5x rally than a repeat of past 10x blow-offs, citing a maturing market and growing institutional participation as dampeners on extreme volatility.

This view does not confirm where Bitcoin goes after $90,000; it simply lowers the bar for what counts as a strong outcome this cycle, a distinction worth keeping in mind while watching the longer-term structural recovery play out against this specific resistance test.

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