“The sentiment in Asia at least has been very bearish in the short term, after they saw the retail side is getting too bullish, ” Alex Zuo, vice president of China-based crypto wallet Cobo,
told CoinDesk. He said the recent price surge in alternative cryptocurrencies reflects increased interest from retail investors, who usually tend to react to price volatility more significantly.

As a result, institutions and bitcoin whales are less inclined to put fresh capital into the market. Zuo said. Instead, they are either taking profits by selling on the spot market or executing arbitrate trades by shorting the spot market.

Data from on-chain analytics firm CryptoQuant also indicates there is selling pressure on the spot market. The whale ratio on exchanges, which measures the relative size of the top 10 inflows to total inflows for all exchanges, has gone up since last week to above 0.85, meaning that more large bitcoin holders are depositing bitcoin on exchanges. That is considered a sell signal because it could mean large holders of bitcoin are looking to unload their inventory to the market.