According to BroadChain, at 14:32 on April 22, NewsBTC reported that Bitcoin miners sold a record 40,000 BTC in the first quarter of this year. This figure exceeds the total for the entire year of 2025 and is significantly higher than the 20,000 sold during the panic following the Terra collapse in mid-2022. This selling pressure lurks beneath the seemingly recovering market surface.
Despite the price climb, miner behavior still signals distress. Glassnode data shows that the selling occurred as mining difficulty dropped by 2.4% to 135 trillion, while the network hash rate recovered from around 978 EH/s to 992 EH/s this month. During the period of declining difficulty, producers sold at a record pace, pointing to a core issue: tight profit margins. The economics of mining have not recovered as the price chart suggests, and any attempt to sustainably break above $80,000 must absorb the continuous selling pressure from this group.
The market is focused on an unignorable deadline. The two-week ceasefire agreement between the US and Iran is set to expire on Wednesday evening Washington time. US President Trump stated on Monday that he does not plan to extend it. The market has already priced around this deadline. Bitcoin has lagged behind the stock market during this round of geopolitical easing; the MSCI World Index has started an 11-day winning streak, while Bitcoin has only slowly climbed from below $75,000 to above $76,000 during the same period.
ETF demand has provided support for the market. According to SoSoValue data, spot Bitcoin ETFs saw a net inflow of $996 million last week, while spot Ethereum ETFs saw an inflow of $276 million during the same period. This institutional buying has created a price floor as miners release supply into the market. Research firm Kaiko noted that a clear break above $76,000 would open the path towards $85,000. On the downside, if no agreement is reached after Wednesday's deadline, a price drop below $75,000 remains a key risk traders are watching.