Bitcoin recovered slightly over the weekend, but still remains suppressed at a relative seasonal low of $27,360. What’s behind the latest slump?

According to crypto market analysis firm CryptoQuant, the downward price pressure may be coming from miners.

Miners ‘Unload Their Bags’

In a post from BaroVirtual on Saturday, the analyst noted that miners have been drastically reducing their holdings since May 5, with miner net position change turning negative on May 9. The metric gauges how much miner reserves are growing – or shrinking – each day, helping measure whether miners are HODLing or selling their newly mined coins. 

The chart shows that miners were heavily accumulating Bitcoin from mid-March until mid-April, after which a wave of sell pressure helped push the asset down from over $30,000 to below $27,300 within three days.

That selling pressure has remained roughly consistent until today, culminating in Bitcoin tumbling to a multi-month low of $26,260 on Friday.

The BRC-20 Fee Spike

Before Bitcoin’s dip last week, miners were having a field day in new revenue netted from new hype surrounding Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens, which are bringing Ethereum-like utility (NFTs and tokenization) to Bitcoin. 

The phenomenon also drove up Bitcoin’s fees much like Ethereum’s, reaching an average of $30 per transaction on May 8. These fees went straight into miners’ pockets, providing a massive bonus atop the 6.25 BTC they typically earn per block.