The price of Bitcoin (BTC) has been stagnating in recent months, as reported by CryptoQuant experts. This is causing increasing concern among investors. According to analysts, one of the reasons for this stagnation is the increase in over-the-counter (OTC) trading, which replaces exchange trading and, as a result, reduces the volatility of cryptocurrency prices. This situation is reminiscent of the dynamics observed in 2019, when similar patterns led to a long-term lull before a new price surge.

Investor behavior analysis is often done by examining realized market capitalization by UTXO (unspent transaction output) lifetime. In this case, special attention is paid to UTXOs with a lifetime of less than 6 months, which allows identifying new market participants.

According to the latest data, CryptoQuant researchers noted that in recent months there has been a small peak in UTXOs of this category, indicating the arrival of new investors to the market. This probably happened in March of this year, when the BTC price reached a local maximum.

However, further dynamics of UTXO show their decrease, which can mean 2 scenarios. The first is that new investors have already left the market, fixing losses. The second is that they continued to hold assets and moved into the category of long-term investors and now hold UTXO for more than 6 months.

A similar situation was observed in 2019, when a similar structure was recorded shortly before the Bitcoin halving. Then, it took about 490 days for the digital coin to reach a new all-time high. It is worth noting that this period coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic, which could have affected the recovery timeframe.

Bitcoin has been fluctuating in a wide range for six months now, showing no clear signs of a breakout. Despite confidence in long-term growth, analysts advise moderating short-term expectations and closely monitoring market developments.$BTC