Bitcoin’s miner supply is tighter than in previous cycles — but not scarce enough to qualify as a true supply shock, according to new analysis from Axel Adler Jr.’s Bitcoin Morning Brief. Adler’s update argues miners still hold a meaningful off-exchange inventory even as selling pressure into public markets remains elevated.
Adler’s view is built on two linked indicators. First, the 30-day moving average (30DMA) of BTC flows from miners to exchanges, which tracks realized selling pressure entering order books. Second, the aggregated BTC balance on over-the-counter (OTC) addresses tied to miners, which gauges how much inventory could be sold off-exchange without appearing on public books. Put together, the data suggest the market is absorbing steady miner distribution rather than confronting a sudden exhaustion of hidden supply.
On the exchange side, Adler highlights a clear change since Halving #4: miner inflows to exchanges climbed after the halving and accelerated from autumn 2025 onward. By 2026 the 30DMA remained in what he calls an “elevated regime,” signaling that a significant share of freshly mined coins are still being routed into the market. Although inflows pulled back from recent peaks in the past few weeks, Adler sees that as a pause within an elevated regime rather than proof of a sustained downtrend. In his words, a real reduction in miner pressure would require a prolonged decline in the 30DMA, not a short oscillation.
The OTC picture is more nuanced. Miner-linked OTC balances currently sit near 152.6k BTC — far below the 2018 peak around 595k BTC and only modestly above the series low of roughly 146.9k BTC recorded in July 2025. By long-term standards this is compressed, but Adler cautions against calling the buffer exhausted. More than 150k BTC remains parked in OTC addresses, and recent months have seen the balance wobble in a narrow band, even showing an upward spike in February. That pattern looks like a low but persistent reserve, not a final phase of depletion.
The takeaway: miner supply is structurally tighter than in earlier cycles — miners hold substantially less OTC inventory than before — but the reserve hasn’t vanished and immediate selling pressure via exchanges remains meaningful. That combination is a “mixed signal” for markets: less potential for large, hidden off-exchange dumps than in prior cycles, yet ongoing tactical pressure through exchange flows persists. At press time, BTC was trading near recent levels as markets digested the implications.
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