Over the past month, long-term holders have released roughly 356,000 bitcoin from their wallets, pushing the "long-term holder" share of circulating supply below 60% for the first time in months. At the same time, U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs pulled in nearly $300 million in a single day on Monday, marking their strongest daily performance since May 5. Taken together, these two data points form the core tension of VanEck's report: coins are changing hands, and the direction of that shift doesn't appear to be a continuation of panic selling.
In the report, VanEck senior investment analyst Patrick Bush and head of digital assets research Matthew Sigel note that the firm's proprietary Bitcoin Capitulation Check tracks 12 signals, 8 of which are currently active. Over the past three months, all 12 signals have at some point fallen into capitulation territory. The research team writes that this data suggests the market has already gone through "what appears to be bitcoin price capitulation" and is "near or already in an accumulation phase."
As of Tuesday, bitcoin was trading around $64,700, having consolidated in a range between $58,000 and $66,500 since early June — still down roughly 48% from its all-time high of about $126,300 set in October 2025. VanEck's report notes that in bitcoin's previous three bear market phases, the time from price peak to maximum drawdown averaged 12.7 months. This current correction, measured from the early-October high last year, has now entered its 11th month — meaning that, based on past cycles, the pivot toward an accumulation phase could arrive sometime between September and November.
Still, VanEck cautions against treating these capitulation signals as a guaranteed short-term buy signal. Historically, periods when 8 to 12 of these indicators triggered simultaneously were followed by average 90-day and 180-day returns that actually lagged the benchmark. "We expect this cycle's bottom to be shallower," the report states, citing the existence of spot bitcoin ETPs, a much larger institutional holder base, and the absence of collapses among crypto lending platforms or exchanges — like FTX, Celsius, or Terra Luna — that had amplified past downturns.
The total amount of bitcoin held for more than a year has fallen by about 356,000 BTC over the past 30 days, dropping to 11.84 million coins — the direct cause of the long-term holder share slipping below 60%.
