Bitcoin short-term whales' unrealised gains fell 53 percent over the past month, data showed.

CoinPost, a blockchain media outlet, reported on Tuesday that on-chain analyst Axel Adler Jr said the mark-to-market profit of short-term large holders fell to $4.6 billion on Oct. 20 from $9.8 billion on Sept. 22.

The indicator shows profit capacity is shrinking rapidly for large Bitcoin holders who bought recently. Short-term holders are investors who purchased Bitcoin relatively recently. The group's total unrealised profit and loss turned positive on Aug. 20.

Adler noted the 53 percent drop did not mean whales sold half their holdings. It means profits on current holdings have declined. He explained that as the indicator nears zero, the price approaches these short-term whales' average purchase price.

Exchange inflows also increased. Whales moved 10,605 BTC to exchanges on Oct. 20. That was the largest amount since Oct. 8. It was 2.8 times the daily average inflow of 3,815 BTC over the past 30 days. The 30-day average itself is 17 percent higher than the one-year average of 3,241 BTC. It means exchange inflows are rising overall rather than reflecting an unusual move on a single day.

Transfers to exchanges are typically interpreted as a prelude to selling. Adler added that an exchange transfer does not immediately mean a sale, and is only a signal showing the possibility of selling.

A similar pattern emerged in early October. From Oct. 7 to Oct. 8, whales sent 29,517 BTC to exchanges, and the Bitcoin price fell 4 percent over the same two days. Over that period, short-term whales' unrealised gains fell to $6.1 billion from $8.2 billion.

Against that backdrop, short-term supply-demand pressure is drawing attention again. Adler assessed the current situation, in which shrinking unrealised gains overlaps with rising exchange supply, as a "moderately negative" signal. Short-term whales are still in profit, but the scale of their mark-to-market gains is less than half the peak recorded in September.

The market is therefore watching whether additional exchange inflows by short-term whales continue, and whether those coins lead to actual selling. The current indicator alone cannot conclude an immediate bout of large-scale selling, but the simultaneous drop in profits and rise in exchange inflows over the past month remains a burden factor for Bitcoin's short-term price trend.