After withstanding a string of chaotic weeks, Bitcoin managed to battle bears with the last “weekly” candle signaling a possible relief rally. Since dropping to a multi-year low of $17,622 about ten days ago, the price managed to recapture $21,750 before being stopped in its tracks over the weekend.

Experts have attributed last week’s strength to a plethora of micro indicators which suggest the market could be in the deepest phases of this bear cycle.

Exchange Outflows Surge, HODLers Stay steadfast

With Bitcoin’s price plunging below $20K, on-chain metrics depict an increased level of buying activity as investors perceive they are getting a bargain. Whales (holding over 10K BTC) and shrimps (less than 1 BTC) have particularly been adding meaningfully to their on-chain balance throughout June as depicted by the “Accumulation Trend Score” metric which has continued to return high values above 0.9 throughout the month.

Moreover, a significant number of investors have heeded calls to withdraw their assets from exchanges in an attempt to lower the risk of selling. According to data from on-chain analytics firm Glassnode, roughly 8,755 BTC, worth over $181,669,752 million (in today’s price) were withdrawn from crypto exchanges in the last few days.

On Monday, Glassnode also published a report that shows The Reserve Risk Metric has also plunged to all-time lows. “This metric is heavily weighed down when there is an excess of HODLing behaviour,” the firm wrote. The metric plunging to new lows, this indicates that Bitcoin investors generally remain steadfast in holding onto their coins despite the asset’s price suffering a painful beatdown this year.

What Next?

That said, despite investors experiencing a long overdue, but classic capitulation in June, driven mostly by 2020-2021 investors, it is still unclear whether this is the rear of Bitcoin’s bear cycle. According to Gareth Soloway, president and CFO IntoTheMoneyStocks, BTC’s price could experience a relief rally to $25,500 or even $28,000 “in the very near term.” He however warns that it could plunge further given that we are still in the larger bear market phase.

“This is still a bear market… the charts are still pointing to overall further downside,” Gareth told Stansberry Research’s Daniela Cambone in an interview Tuesday.

Elsewhere, on-chain metrics expert Ali Martinez believes that for Bitcoin to advance further to the upside, the price has to close above $21,820. He bases his argument on the fact that there aren’t any significant supply barriers ahead. “BTC also needs to keep $20,800 as support for the bullish outlook to be validated. If not then expect a downswing to $19,000,” Ali Tweeted on Monday.

As of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $19,170 after a 4.23% decrease in the past 24 hours.