On-chain data shows the OTC desks that Bitcoin miners wish to use have seen their balance shoot up, an indication that historically been bearish.

Bitcoin Miners Have Been Depositing Big To OTC Desks Recently

As identified by an analyst in a CryptoQuant Quicktake post, BTC miners have been sending coins to over-the-counter (OTC) desks throughout the past three months.

OTC desks are platforms that facilitate a direct transaction between individuals or institutions. Such selling and buying is more discreet than it’s on centralized exchanges, so it could possibly be hard to trace who’s trading on these platforms.

The analytics firm CryptoQuant, nevertheless, has used on-chain data to discover certain addresses which are prone to be related to OTC desks that miners wish to use.

These are the wallets that miners often transfer to and considering that miners generally move coins out of their reserve for selling, it will make sense the addresses that they send to can be connected to the sales by some means.

Below is a chart that shows the trend within the balance of those probable miner “OTC desks” over the past decade.

The worth of the metric appears to have sharply gone up in recent months | Source: CryptoQuant

As displayed within the above graph, the miner OTC desk balance had been at relatively low values earlier within the 12 months, even after the cryptocurrency had rallied to its recent all-time high (ATH).

Within the consolidation period that has followed since this ATH, nevertheless, miners have made significant transfers into these addresses. Because the quant notes,

Bitcoin OTC desk balances for miners have increased by greater than 70% over the past three months, rising from 215,000 BTC in June to 368,000 BTC in August—a rise of 153,000 BTC.

The metric hasn’t been at such a high level since way back in June 2022. Considering these large deposits, it will seem to be miners have been desperate to move on their coins recently.

Within the chart, the analyst has highlighted what happened in previous periods where the miner OTC desk balance observed an identical trajectory. It might appear that such a pattern has historically led to a decline for the BTC price.

As for why miners have shifted such a considerable amount of coins to those platforms, the reply may lie in an event that occurred back in April of this 12 months: the fourth Halving.

Halvings are periodic events happening roughly every 4 years that permanently cut the Bitcoin block subsidy in half. Miners make the vast majority of their income from the block subsidy, so it’s obvious how these events can affect their funds.

Miners initially held off on transferring to those platforms after this event, but that could be due to indisputable fact that the atmosphere available in the market was still bullish. Because the consolidation lengthened, though, the miners may not have been capable of address the pressure anymore, so that they decided to sell.

Given what has historically occurred when this pattern has taken shape, it’s possible that BTC may find yourself feeling an identical bearish effect this time as well.

BTC Price

On the time of writing, Bitcoin is floating around $61,300, up greater than 4% during the last seven days.

Looks like the value of the coin has bounced back over the past day | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView

Featured image from Dall-E, CryptoQuant.com, chart from TradingView.com