Bitcoin Inflows to Deposit Wallets Spike to Bear Market Levels, Raising Exhaustion Fears

Right now, even minor price moves are enough to flip sentiment from fear to optimism without changing broader short-term trends.

More than 106,000 BTC flowed into Binance deposit addresses on April 21, with another roughly 130,000 BTC hitting OKX, volumes not seen since the tail end of the last bear market, according to on-chain analyst Darkfost.

The timing is worth paying attention to, as Bitcoin has been grinding sideways for nearly three months now, and the data suggests the market may be running out of patience before it runs out of sellers.

What the Exchange Inflows Signal

For context on the numbers, Binance averages around 44,000 BTC in daily deposit-address inflows across the year, and OKX averages around 74,000, meaning Tuesday’s readings were more than double those baselines on both exchanges.

Darkfost was clear about what these flows actually represent. When someone decides to sell on an exchange, their Bitcoin typically travels first to a deposit address before the platform sweeps it into its operational wallet. So the spike is not noise; it is a trail left by holders getting ready to sell.

He also said that it shows that traders can’t decide whether to be hopeful about a new uptrend or scared of losing more money.

But what makes this reading harder to interpret as simply bearish is what Darkfost said alongside it:

“In this environment, even minor price fluctuations are enough to rapidly shift market sentiment from extreme fear to strong optimism, while the broader short-term trend remains unchanged.”

He closed with the line that probably stuck with most people who read it:

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“Markets are not always broken by volatility. Sometimes they are exhausted by consolidation.”

Looking at derivatives data from that same 24-hour period, it shows that more than 112,000 traders lost money, totaling about $277 million. The biggest loss was a $6.43 million Bitcoin position on Hyperliquid.

Macro Pressure Affecting BTC

The three-month range did not happen in a vacuum, with BTC essentially tracking geopolitical headlines for weeks. It ran from below $70,500 to $75,000 as ceasefire talks got going the week of April 14, pushed briefly to $76,000, then spent days bouncing between $73,500 and $75,600 before the Strait of Hormuz reopening gave it one last push higher.

However, as CryptoPotato reported, the US and Iran resumed strikes against each other over the weekend after Iran once again closed the Strait of Hormuz. Bitcoin had briefly touched $78,400, its highest in ten weeks, after Trump made positive statements about peace talks, then gave most of it back after Iran denied those claims and the military exchanges picked back up.

Right now, the asset is trading above $76,000, up more than 2% in the last seven days, per data from CoinGecko. The upticks are more pronounced across longer timeframes, with BTC gaining more than 11% over two weeks and 10% in the last 30 days. But it is still nearly 13% below its level from one year ago and sits close to 40% below its all-time high of over $126,000 achieved in October 2025.