Who actually bought the $90k crash — buyers, sellers, and the circus in between

The buyers, the panickers, and the messy transfer of coins

Here’s the short, slightly chaotic version: when Bitcoin tumbled through the $90,000 mark, two very different groups showed up — deep-pocketed buyers who quietly scooped coins and a bunch of short-term holders who sold into the panic. The result looked like a relay race where the baton got dropped and then picked up by slower, heavier runners.

A company called Strategy bought 8,178 BTC — about $835.6 million worth during the slide — at an average price of roughly $102,171 for that tranche, which now sits below water. That firm’s overall cost basis for its whole stash is estimated around $74,433, so on the balance sheet it can still be in the green even if the most recent batch is losing money.

In a separate move, Harvard Management Company disclosed a big stake in an IBIT product on its 13F filing: about 6.8 million shares valued near $443 million as of September 30, which was a big increase from the prior quarter. Keep in mind a 13F only lists certain US public holdings, so it’s a partial peek at what a huge endowment might be doing.

Meanwhile, the short-term cohort — wallets that acquired coins in roughly the past five months — took losses as prices dropped. That’s classic retail behavior: buy the rally, ride the leverage rollercoaster, then hit eject when margin calls or fear show up. Derivatives data backs this up: funding rates went negative at times, and open interest fell, which usually means longs got liquidated and positions closed rather than fresh shorts piling on.

To make things worse for the market floor, US spot Bitcoin ETFs had roughly $2.57 billion in outflows through November 17, the roughest monthly pull since they launched. Those redemptions tend to hit hardest during US market hours and can force sellers to convert spot holdings back to fiat, adding downward pressure right when retail wallets were realizing losses.

On-chain trackers showed wallets holding more than 1,000 BTC were adding coins as smaller holders exited — the image of big wallets quietly buying while the crowd panics. Tools that label addresses also flagged various smart-money moves into altcoins during dips. But remember: these labelings rely on heuristics and clustering, not identity cards. They’re good directional signals, not certified receipts.

Is this a genuine bottom or an elaborate bait-and-switch?

Short answer: maybe. Long answer: also maybe. Redistribution from short-term to long-term holders can be the start of new accumulation, or just trap-door buying that looks great until another leg down arrives. The main variables are ETF flows, macro headlines, and whether spot demand keeps showing up at these lower prices.

If ETF outflows keep gnawing at demand, they can remove the steady buyers who had been soaking up miner sell pressure and other supply sources. Strategy’s $835M buy and Harvard’s IBIT allocation are meaningful, but they don’t automatically counterbalance billions in ETF redemptions if that trend continues into December.

Also, be careful reading the filings and blockchain tags like gospel. A 13F doesn’t show everything an endowment owns, and on-chain wallet clusters can misattribute activity. The narrative that “whales bought and retail sold” fits the data so far, but it’s built on imperfect snapshots and assumptions.

What happens next hinges on whether the buyers who stepped in at these prices actually hold through further volatility. Strategy can keep averaging down if it wants; Harvard and other institutional allocators operate on multi-year horizons. Retail traders and leveraged players do not — they’ll get forced out faster.

So for now: the crash cleared out some weak hands and moved coins into longer-term wallets, which could be the start of a real bottom — or just a pause before another plunge. The difference will show up over weeks of flows and funding-rate behavior, not from a single filing or a few labeled addresses. Watch the next month, not just last week’s wallet gossip.

And yes, it’s chaotic, dramatic, and perfect fodder for memes. But for anyone actually holding money here, patience and a healthy skepticism of flashy on-chain snapshots are the best accessories.