Bitcoin has returned to the same price level it last touched in March 2024. That’s the headline. The more revealing part is what didn’t line up with the price.
CryptoQuant founder Ki Young Ju points to a mid-May to June drawdown that dragged BTC from above $81,000 down to around $63,000. BTC even printed a brief low below $62,000, NewsBTC reports.
ETFs and Strategy soak up more than “Satoshi’s stack”
Young Ju frames the puzzle with supply flow numbers. According to his post on X, once BTC was at $63,000 in March 2024, the spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) absorbed 509,102 BTC.
Over the same window, Strategy added 650,706 BTC, NewsBTC says.
Together, NewsBTC reports the combined ETFs plus Strategy absorption comes to more than 1.24 million BTC. That beats the roughly 1 million BTC figure associated with “Satoshi’s stack,” per the same comparison in the article. For another benchmark, NewsBTC adds that all centralized exchanges combined hold about 2.7 million BTC.
CryptoQuant’s founder also called out the mismatch directly, saying more BTC than Satoshi’s stack and nearly half of exchange reserves has been absorbed, yet price is still back at the same level, NewsBTC quotes.
Key numbers (per NewsBTC citing CryptoQuant)
| Metric | Amount | Time reference in article |
|---|---|---|
| Spot ETFs absorption | 509,102 BTC | Since BTC was at $63,000 in March 2024 |
| Strategy added | 650,706 BTC | Since BTC was at $63,000 in March 2024 |
| Combined ETFs + Strategy | 1.24M+ BTC | Same window |
| “Satoshi’s stack” comparison | ~1M BTC | Rough estimate cited in article |
| Centralized exchange holdings | ~2.7M BTC | Comparison cited in article |
The Realized Price signal is what’s getting flagged
NewsBTC ties the next step to a classic on-chain reference: Realized Price. The metric tracks the cost basis of the average wallet on the Bitcoin network.
The article says Realized Price has dropped in recent months as investors have participated at lower bear market prices. It currently sits at $53,800, per NewsBTC.
The key interpretive claim in the piece goes like this. BTC has remained “a notable distance” above Realized Price so far, but historically, NewsBTC says bear markets have tended to end only when price ventures below that line.
As for why this cycle might differ, Young Ju’s skepticism shows up in the quote NewsBTC includes. He said he expected the Realized Price level would be hard to revisit given institutional inflows and that MSTR has been selling very little. Yet NewsBTC reports the current price action points to unusually strong sell pressure.
Why “net absorption” doesn’t automatically stop a drawdown
It’s tempting to treat ETF and corporate accumulation as a price floor. But the article’s own framing undercuts that assumption.
NewsBTC is essentially describing two things happening at once:
- Big spot and corporate demand is pulling coins off the available pool.
- Market price can still fall fast if sell pressure overwhelms that incremental buying.
The desk point here is simple. “Absorbed” in a time window doesn’t mean the marginal buyer is buying every seller at every moment. It also doesn’t remove the fact that holders can capitulate into liquidity needs.
NewsBTC reports BTC is around $63,200 at the time of writing, down more than 13% over the last seven days. That’s consistent with the idea in Young Ju’s argument that strong selling can persist even while large players accumulate.
What to watch next
NewsBTC ends with the open question that matters most if you care about historical analogs. Will BTC hold above Realized Price this cycle, or will it trace the same pattern the article describes from prior bear-market behavior.
On-chain, Realized Price currently sits at $53,800, NewsBTC says. Price is still well above that level, but the article also highlights that this distance hasn’t prevented the drawdown.
So the “so what” is not that absorption failed. It’s that absorption alone has not neutralized the sell side yet. The next confirmation will come from whether price action starts behaving like a floor around that cost-basis line, not from how many coins big buyers can stack in a given window.