The price of Bitcoin (BTC) has weathered multiple storms this year, yet it remains stubbornly stable in the mid-$80,000 range.

According to Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas, the resilience comes from a shift in ownership: institutional investors and corporate giants like Strategy are now the main buyers, soaking up supply that once rattled retail-dominated markets.

Strong Hands Replacing Weak Ones

Balchunas took to X on Wednesday, highlighting that inflows into spot Bitcoin ETFs, particularly BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), have remained strong in 2025 despite broader macroeconomic pressure and intermittent price dips. With $2.4 billion in year-to-date inflows, IBIT now ranks in the top 1% of all ETFs.

He argued that ETF holders and corporate buyers are proving to be “stronger hands” than the speculative traders of the past:

“Impressive and IMO helps explain why btc’s price has been relatively stable: bc its owners are more stable.”

While some ETFs like Fidelity’s FBTC and Grayscale’s GBTC recorded modest outflows over the past month, IBIT led the pack with inflows of $406 million in the last 30 days. Even during choppy weeks, daily flows remained mostly positive, showing that institutional interest hasn’t gone down despite price corrections.

The accumulation extends beyond ETFs. Recent on-chain data from CryptoQuant shows that holders of 1,000 to 10,000 BTC have been “buying like never before,” aggressively accumulating since mid-February. That trend accelerated through March and into April, even as Bitcoin prices retreated from their all-time high reached in early 2025.

Corporate buying has also reached record levels, with a recent Bitwise report indicating that Q1 2025 had registered the most ever acquisitions of Bitcoin by public companies, numbering 95,431 BTC. At the forefront of this accumulation was Strategy, whose latest purchase of 3,459 BTC for nearly $286 million pushed its holdings to a staggering 531,644 BTC bought at an average cost of $67,556.

Price Action

Currently, the number one cryptocurrency is trading at $84,400, a modest 0.9% uptick in 24 hours. It’s a 3.6% increase over seven days, meaning it is underperforming the broader crypto market, which went up 5% in that time frame.

Nonetheless, BTC has barely budged across longer time frames, making gains of less than 1% across the last two weeks, and a mere 1.4% over the past month, giving more credence to Balchunas’ thesis.