The bitcoin price fell more than 5% in the past 24 hours on Sunday evening, dropping below $65,000 as large holders moved coins onto exchanges and recent buyers sold at a loss, adding pressure to an already fragile market.
Most of the price drop occurred within just two hours on Sunday evening.
This marks Bitcoin’s first-ever stretch of six consecutive negative weekly closes, six straight closes below its 100-week moving average, and three consecutive closes beneath its 2021 high.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency was trading near $64,500 at the time of writing, down roughly $3,500 on the day. The decline followed a weekend flush from the $67,000 range, breaking a relatively tight consolidation and accelerating lower into thin liquidity.
Trading activity picked up during the drop, signaling active distribution rather than a quiet drift, according to Bitcoin Magazine Pro data.
Meanwhile, exchange metrics from CryptoQuant reveal that whales are dominating inflows. CryptoQuant said large bitcoin holders are now driving most exchange deposits, with the exchange whale ratio rising to 0.64, the highest level since 2015, signaling that whales are leading selling activity.
The average bitcoin deposit size has climbed to 1.58 BTC, the highest since June 2022, reinforcing that larger players are moving coins onto exchanges.
While total inflows have fallen about 60% from the early February spike to roughly 23,000 BTC on a seven-day average, exchange flows remain elevated, leaving the market exposed to further volatility.
Bitcoin price analysis
Prior to this bitcoin price dump, price action was semi-muted over the last week, with a bounce from a bitcoin price of $60,000 failing to break resistance at $71,800 and instead dipping to support near $65,650 before closing around $67,000 in the week prior.
Bears remain in control as buyers have shown little follow-through. But some big institutions are continuing to buy into bitcoin price exposure. Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Company increased its stake in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) to 12.7 million shares worth about $630 million as of Dec. 31, up 46% from the prior quarter.
Al Warda Investments also raised its IBIT holdings to 8.22 million shares, continuing its move into regulated bitcoin ETF exposure. Together, the two Abu Dhabi funds held more than 20 million IBIT shares valued at over $1.1 billion at year-end 2025.
Strategy bought another 2,486 BTC for $168.4 million last week, bringing its total holdings to 717,131 BTC accumulated.
Strategy executive Michael Saylor hinted on X that Strategy may make its 100th Bitcoin purchase this week, continuing a 13-week accumulation streak despite a $5.8B unrealized loss.