Around 200,000 BTC have shifted out of long-term holder wallets over the past week, with the movement appearing more consistent with a change in custody behavior than a wave of traditional selling.
The on-chain impact of the Coldcard security incident is beginning to emerge as older Bitcoin holdings become active again.
Data from Glassnode shows that roughly 210,000 BTC have left long-term holder (LTH) wallets during the past week, marking the biggest decline in this category since December 2024, when Bitcoin was nearing the $100,000 milestone.
Glassnode defines long-term holders as entities that have kept their Bitcoin untouched for at least 155 days. These investors are often viewed as market “smart money” because they typically hold through short-term volatility and are less likely to react to temporary price movements.
The total supply held by long-term holders has dropped to about 14.7 million BTC. Before the Coldcard incident, that figure was just below 15 million BTC and was close to reaching a record high.
In previous market cycles, large movements from long-term holder wallets have often occurred during strong rallies or near market tops. Similar distribution trends appeared around Bitcoin’s peaks in March 2021, March 2024, and December 2024, when older holders sold into periods of increased demand.
The current situation differs because the movement is happening while Bitcoin remains significantly below its peak price. BTC is trading near $64,000, about 50% lower than its October all-time high.
Rather than signaling widespread profit-taking, the latest activity may represent investors moving their Bitcoin into new storage arrangements after the Coldcard breach. Bitcoin’s price also remained stable following the incident instead of falling to new lows.
The Coldcard exploit was linked to weak randomness in certain affected firmware versions, which allowed attackers to reconstruct some wallet recovery phrases and drain funds. Thousands of addresses were impacted, with total losses estimated at up to $114 million. Coldcard advised affected users to create new wallets and move their funds, warning that updating firmware alone would not secure wallets if their private keys had already been compromised.
As a result, some of the decline in long-term holder supply could be caused by users transferring their BTC into newly created wallets with stronger security protections. Other investors may be moving assets to regulated custodians or spot Bitcoin ETFs as concerns around self-custody increase.
Institutional demand has remained supportive, with U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs attracting approximately $754 million in inflows over the past week. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) accounted for much of that capital.
The key point is that on-chain transfers do not always represent selling activity. In this case, the reduction in long-term holder supply may indicate a broader transition in how Bitcoin is stored rather than a decline in investor confidence.
