In the spirit of no stupid questions, Bitcoin influencer Crypto Tea released a post on X that many people are wondering but haven’t said out loud. If previously dormant whales can crash the BTC price by selling $2 billion in BTC, why doesn’t a year of relentless buying pressure to the tune of over $80 billion from Saylor and ETFs send it to the moon?
The Bitcoin Therapist picked it up:
“Explain how this is possible,” he pondered.
Sudden trades vs algo buying
Creator of The Bitcoin Quantile Model, Plan C, quickly came to the rescue to explain the phenomenon. A big fat-finger sale of $2 billion in BTC can send the market down faster than a piano from a 10-storey building.
Yet the $83 billion gobbled up in 2025 by Michael Saylor and the ETF brigade? Well, that seems to leave the BTC price making slow, steady tracks rather than moonshots. What gives?
The logic is almost boringly simple, Plan C explains:
“Easy. To compare the impact of trades, you need to consider the rate of trading by dividing the total dollars by the time over which they occurred.”
In other words: price moves at the edges, not the averages.
Sudden, massive sell orders, especially in thin liquidity, can wipe out order books and cause sharp price drops. Algobot buying, on the other hand, is precisely designed to blend in, spread out, and avoid crashing the party. Buy $83 billion in a year, and you build a floor, not a rocket, unless the pace picks up.
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‘Paper’ Bitcoin: The X Factor
But wait. What about paper Bitcoin? The Bitcoin Therapist asks. You know, the supply we think we see on exchanges? Plan C’s take:
“That is an unknown X factor for sure, but I have no way of knowing the degree to which there are paper Bitcoins. My answer assumes there are none. But if there’s a significant amount, it would be another contributing factor to muted price moves.”
Reported purchases might be diluted if significant volumes of “paper” Bitcoin (IOUs or synthetics) are traded instead of real coins, creating the illusion of buy pressure without actually moving real coins off the market.
What really moves the BTC price?
Ultimately, the difference comes down to pace, execution, and market structure. ETF and institutional buying in 2025 was deliberate, steady, and highly fragmented across exchanges and OTC desks, sometimes even facilitated by algorithmic order books designed to minimize price impact.
Crashes, by contrast, tend to be abrupt, concentrated, and, yes, panic-inducing, particularly when carried out over thin liquidity weekends.
So, the next time a headline screams market meltdown over a quick $2 billion dump, remember it’s not just the size, it’s the speed and the source. Slow burns build floors. Sudden shocks bring flames. And somewhere in between, paper Bitcoin lurks as the market’s ultimate wildcard.