Binance registers fewer transactions of 1 BTC or more, originating from the wallets of ‘wholecoiners’. The inflows are at the lowest level since 2018, signaling a shift in market structure.
Binance saw fewer inflows from ‘wholecoiners’, the owners of more than 1 BTC in their wallets. The relatively high price of BTC means some traders are selling a fraction of their holdings. Additionally, some still hold BTC for the long term.
The behavior of retail wholecoiners is one of the indicators for long-term market confidence, despite the current volatility of BTC. Even the recent drop below $90K did no accelerate capitulations from wholecoiners, especially if they held through previous bear markets. Wholecoiner transactions to Binance slowed down in the past three months, marking the lowest inflow to exchanges in the past few years.
Retail inflows to Binance in general slowed down in 2025, as market participants moved to other platforms, including DEXs and prediction markets. Binance remains the leading centralized exchange, with active spot trading in November. While retail held onto their coins, miners increased the balance with bigger deposits.
BTC wholecoiner movements collapse to new lows
Wholecoiners have become one of the major classes of long-term holders. In the past two years, wholecoiner addresses diminished slightly, from over 1M to around 974K, with some gradual distribution.
For the whole of 2025, those addresses only sent out 6,500 BTC to Binance, the lowest activity since 2018.
During the most recent bull cycle, wholecoiners decided not to trade, as during previous market peaks, instead preserving their holdings. The addresses are dispersed, but they still hold around 1M BTC, around 25% of the amount held by corporate treasuries and other whale wallets.
Another reason may be that becoming a wholecoiner during the latest bull cycle is more difficult. At the same time, older holders have already taken profits on their coins at previous price peaks.
The BTC ecosystem also offers other tools to tap the value of BTC, including non-custodial staking, lending, or other DeFi products. Decentralized markets and apps have taken some of the trades that previously relied on Binance for liquidity.
BTC flows into accumulation addresses
BTC trading increased the component of spot buying and selling, while futures trading slowed down. However, unlike previous cycles, a smaller amount of BTC changed hands. Most of the inflows came from large-scale whales with deliberate deposits.
At the same time, more coins are settled in OTC markets. Some of the BTC flows into accumulation addresses, avoiding the movement of coins to decrease counterparty risk and scams.
BTC in accumulation addresses saw renewed deposits in December, as more users switched to self-custody. Binance also expects an outflow of funds in early 2026, if another event is organized to remind users not to store their coins on exchanges.
The recent inflow of coins into accumulation addresses is even bigger compared to the event in early 2025, when more users withdrew coins from exchanges. Over 6,400 BTC flowed into accumulation addresses around December 10, with accelerated withdrawals in the past few months. The increasing amount of holders prevented a partial capitulation, although some retail sellers became more active as BTC dipped to $85,000.
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