Short-term bitcoin holders may be selling, but onchain metrics show that long-term holders have been happy to buy it back.

"Current metrics depict short-term holders offloading their assets, with long-term holders capitalizing on the opportunity to buy in again," Bitfinex analysts said in a report. 

The digital asset's price trajectory since the beginning of the week has reflected this pattern. Short-term holders bought in on Monday and quickly sold holdings to capitalize on the gains after the asset spiked around 3% on the same day.

"Such time capitulation by short-term holders is typical of this cohort and it continues the trend of greater long-term holder accumulation," the Bitfinex analysts said. They cited CryptoQuant data that showed "the short-term holder cohort is currently at a deficit, leading them to relinquish the very coins they earlier bought from the long-term cohort."

The world's largest digital asset by market capitalization has risen 6.4% over the past week, according to CoinGecko. It gained 0.8% on Tuesday, rising to $27,454 at 12:17 p.m. ET.

Long term holder accumulation

CryptoQuant analyst Adam Mourad, meanwhile, pointed to onchain data that showed long-term holders are accumulating and moving assets off exchanges.

"Onchain outflow data shows bitcoin is tracing a strategic path chosen by certain investors to move their BTC +6.35% away from exchange platforms, and recent observations following the price surge reveal that over 10,000 bitcoins have been transferred from exchanges to cold wallets," Mourad told The Block.

Long-term holders may be gaining confidence from the macroeconomic outlook, with analysts largely expecting no rate changes at Wednesday's Federal Open Market Committee meeting, despite ongoing inflationary pressures.

August's higher-than-expected U.S. CPI, driven by a 10.6% surge in gasoline prices, will be a consideration for the Federal Reserve. Increasing fuel prices also led to a 0.7% rise in producer prices in August, the steepest jump since June 2022.