Bitcoin heading for worst quarter since start of 2018 bear market

Bitcoin is poised to post its worst-performing quarter since the start of the 2018 bear trend.

The current quarter is also on track to be the second-worst on record for BTC in the almost eight years since the start of 2014.

According to crypto data aggregator, Skew, Bitcoin is currently down nearly 46% for the quarter, the weakest quarter since Q1 2018 — when it shed approximately 50% of its value over just three months amid the fall-out from 2017’s all-time highs.

Since the start of 2019, Q2 2021 is just the fourth quarter that has seen a drawdown for Bitcoin’s value, with BTC’s price falling roughly 10.6% during Q1 of 2020, 13.6% in Q4 2019, and 21.5% in Q3 2019.

Big guys offloading BTC

According to CoinShares’ June 21 Digital Asset Fund Flows weekly report, institutional investors have continued to offload Bitcoin exposure for the sixth consecutive week, with BTC-tracking investment products experiencing $89 million in outflows over seven days.

Overall, crypto investment products combined saw a third consecutive week of outflows, with investors removing $79 million from the sector last week. However, CoinShares notes that multi-asset products saw inflows of $10 million, followed by Polkadot with $1.2 million, and Ripple with $800,000.

Institutions are not alone in reducing their Bitcoin exposure, with data from on-chain analytics provider, Glassnode, revealing OTC trading desks and miners are also offloading coins.

According to Glassnode, the BTC holdings of OTC desks have dropped to their lowest level since March 2020, while miners have also been selling during recent weeks amid China’s crackdown on Bitcoin mining.

But not everyone is capitulating, with popular Bitcoin podcaster, Anthony Pompliano, tweeting to his nearly one million followers that he is accumulating Bitcoin by dollar cost averaging regardless.

Pomp describes himself as “an atrocious trader who is guaranteed to lose,” and acknowledges he has “no clue where the price of Bitcoin is going in the short term,” which is why the influencer emphasizes his long-term outlook for BTC.

Glassnode also notes that long-term holders — Bitcoin addresses that historically do not sell the coins they accumulate — have significantly increased their holdings since Bitcoin began retracing from its all-time highs in April.