Bitcoin Encounters a $100 Million Sell Wall as New Buyers Take Profits

Bitcoin retraced back to the $91,000 range on Tuesday, after a temporary surge to $94,000 the day before. Recent data indicates significant selling pressure near critical resistance levels, despite encouraging indicators of demand.

Key Takeaways

Bitcoin fell to around $91,000 after a failed attempt to reach $95,000 due to heavy sell orders.
A significant number of new buyers are taking short-term profits amid recent market volatility.
The Bitcoin-to-stablecoin reserve ratio is rising, indicating potential future buying interest.
Strong institutional demand, reflected in Bitcoin ETF inflows, contrasts with current short-term market weakness.
The trend currently indicates consolidation rather than a reversal, needing increased demand to surpass resistance levels.

Key Resistance: The $94,000–$95,000 Range

The recent downturn was triggered by a failed effort to surpass the $94,000–$95,000 range, where order book data highlighted nearly $100 million in sell orders across major exchanges. This large concentration of sell orders acted as a barrier, stopping Bitcoin's rally and prompting some traders to take short-term profits.

New Buyers Entering the Market

For Bitcoin, the $91,000 area has become a significant entry point for new, high-volume buyers who joined the market in early 2025. These buyers seem to be cashing in on short-term profits amidst the recent volatility. Order book heatmaps revealed that sellers absorbed buying pressure as Bitcoin approached this level.

When upward momentum slowed, traders using leverage exited their positions, leading to a quick drop toward $91,000. This movement is more indicative of market structure rather than a drastic change in market sentiment. Currently, most short-term sell-side liquidity has already been exhausted.

There might be one more dip toward the $90,500-$90,800 mark before a potential price rebound.

Potential for a Price Reversal

Despite the current pullback, analysis from on-chain and flow data indicates that the overall trend remains positive. Data from CryptoQuant shows that the Bitcoin-to-stablecoin reserve ratio on Binance is beginning to rise again, which suggests that buying power is accumulating and waiting on the sidelines.

Growing Buying Power on Binance

“This ratio has started to rise again. This shift could signal the early stages of a gradual deployment of sidelined liquidity, which would represent a positive signal for the market," notes CryptoQuant. A higher ratio implies that traders are holding onto stablecoins and are poised to invest during price corrections rather than chasing after breakouts.

This slow buildup of liquidity often precedes consolidation phases, where Bitcoin prices fluctuate within a certain range before making another significant move. Typically, this doesn't lead to immediate sharp rallies in the short term.

Institutional demand remains steady, with Bitcoin ETFs experiencing approximately $697 million in net inflows on January 5, bringing cumulative inflows close to $58 billion.

Long-Term Trends vs. Short-Term Weakness

Notably, these inflows have continued even as Bitcoin has struggled at resistance levels, indicating that demand is driven more by long-term positioning than by speculative trading. This contrast between robust ETF inflows and short-term price weaknesses highlights a growing division within the market.

While long-term buyers keep accumulating, short-term traders are responding to technical resistance and sell-side liquidity. This dynamic helps explain the inability of Bitcoin to maintain its gains above $94,000 without triggering a broader sell-off.

There were no indications of significant exchange inflows or aggressive distribution from long-term holders contributing to this drop.

At present, the data suggests that consolidation is more likely than a price reversal. Climbing above the $95,000 level will probably require consistent spot demand, reduced sell-side liquidity, and supportive momentum across various risk markets. Until that happens, pullbacks to the low $90,000 range seem to be a natural reaction as the market absorbs recent gains.