Bitcoin successfully broke through the level of $45,000, forming a bullish engulfing candlestick on the daily chart. The asset continues to recover after the fall, as shown by the growth rate in the volume of transactions and the number of unique addresses. At the same time, analysts found two interesting and, at first glance, unrelated facts. The first one concerns the recent fall of the bitcoin price, during which the market whales made a massive sell-off. The second implies that there was found a correlation between the activity of big market players, the rise in the bitcoin price, and the worsening debt crisis in China.

During the recent huge market crash, analysts were tracking high-volume transactions and found that whales were putting the market under pressure. In practice, an increase in transactions is associated with large transactions exceeding 500 BTC. However, on September 14, when the bitcoin price plunged, OkLink analysts recorded only a few large transactions. Meanwhile, the market activity remained unchanged, indicating that investors did not exacerbate the BTC sell-off and held their assets. Overall, this suggests that the whales sold off some of their assets as opposed to investors who did not make any bitcoin transactions.

The BTC whales made a local bitcoin sell-off after China's debt crisis peaked. Of course, these events are followed by bitcoin setting its all-time highs. The last time was in April 2021 when bitcoin reached $65,000. One researcher suggested that institutional traders always sell cryptocurrency after a local price reaches its high. However, there exists a discrepancy. On September 14, there was a market decline, during which the big market players sold a part of their BTC. Following this logic, BTC passed its peak in the current cycle, which is hard to believe. On the other hand, there is a situation concerning the Chinese developer, which will pay $300-billion debt assisted by the national government. It will surely increase the inflation rates, which will boost bitcoin's price. Taking into account that the whales organized a local sell-off, the BTC is unlikely to hit new highs in the foreseeable future. Following the theory of correlation and BTC's dependence on inflationary spikes, the next cryptocurrency's active growth will coincide with the beginning of Evergrande's debt settlement procedure.

On September 24, bitcoin touched the level of $45,000, where it is trying to settle after forming a bullish engulfing candlestick. On the daily chart, the BTC trend looks quite weak, and the main technical indicators point to sideways movement and the beginning of the consolidation period. The MACD indicator is approaching the zero mark and continues sideways movement, while the RSI is moving along the level of 50, but signaling a gradual decline. Meanwhile, the stochastic oscillator indicates weaker buying pressure, which could mark both the beginning of an accumulation period and a reversal to the downside.

On-chain activity is also beginning a slow recovery, as reflected in transaction volumes and the number of unique addresses on the BTC network. However, these readings appear to be rather low, and it will take some time for gaining capacities. It is likely that by mid- or late October the market will recover and become more active amid the worsening inflation crisis in China.