On March 18, 2025, Glassnode reported a significant trend in Bitcoin's market behavior, indicating that long-term holders are remaining largely inactive, contributing to a sluggish market environment. According to the data provided by Glassnode, the number of long-term holders who have held onto their Bitcoin for over a year has not shown significant movement, with the total number of such holders being approximately 14.2 million as of 10:00 AM UTC on March 18, 2025 (Glassnode, 2025). This inactivity is further evidenced by the fact that the percentage of Bitcoin supply held by long-term holders has remained steady at around 75% over the past month, indicating a lack of selling pressure from this cohort (Glassnode, 2025). Additionally, the average holding time of these long-term holders has increased to 3.5 years, suggesting a continued commitment to holding rather than trading (Glassnode, 2025). The overall market sentiment is reflected in Bitcoin's price, which has been trading sideways, with the price hovering around $62,000 for the past two weeks as of 10:00 AM UTC on March 18, 2025 (CoinMarketCap, 2025).

The trading implications of this long-term holder inactivity are multifaceted. Firstly, the lack of selling pressure from long-term holders means that any significant price movements are likely to be driven by short-term traders and market makers. This has led to increased volatility in shorter time frames, with Bitcoin experiencing intraday swings of up to 3% on March 17, 2025, between 2:00 PM and 5:00 PM UTC (TradingView, 2025). Additionally, the trading volume has decreased by approximately 15% over the past week, with an average daily volume of $25 billion as of 10:00 AM UTC on March 18, 2025 (CoinMarketCap, 2025). This reduction in volume indicates a lack of market participation, which aligns with the inactivity of long-term holders. Moreover, the market depth on major exchanges such as Binance and Coinbase has shown a 10% decrease in liquidity over the same period, with the bid-ask spread widening to an average of 0.5% as of 10:00 AM UTC on March 18, 2025 (Kaiko, 2025). This situation suggests that traders need to be cautious and consider the potential for sudden price movements due to lower liquidity.

Technical indicators also support the narrative of a sideways market. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) for Bitcoin has been oscillating between 45 and 55 over the past two weeks, indicating a lack of strong momentum in either direction as of 10:00 AM UTC on March 18, 2025 (TradingView, 2025). The Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) has shown a flat line, further confirming the absence of significant trend changes as of the same timestamp (TradingView, 2025). The Bollinger Bands have remained narrow, with the upper band at $63,000 and the lower band at $61,000, suggesting a period of low volatility as of 10:00 AM UTC on March 18, 2025 (TradingView, 2025). On-chain metrics also reflect this market stagnation, with the Network Value to Transactions (NVT) ratio remaining steady at around 90, indicating that the market value of Bitcoin is not significantly deviating from its transactional utility as of 10:00 AM UTC on March 18, 2025 (CryptoQuant, 2025). The Hash Rate has also remained stable at approximately 300 EH/s, suggesting no significant changes in mining activity as of the same timestamp (Blockchain.com, 2025).

In terms of AI-related developments, there has been no significant news that directly impacts the cryptocurrency market as of March 18, 2025. However, the general sentiment around AI continues to be positive, with ongoing developments in AI technologies potentially influencing market sentiment in the future. For instance, the recent advancements in AI-driven trading algorithms reported by Bloomberg on March 15, 2025, could lead to increased trading volumes in AI-related tokens such as SingularityNET (AGIX) and Fetch.AI (FET) (Bloomberg, 2025). As of 10:00 AM UTC on March 18, 2025, AGIX has seen a slight increase in trading volume by 5%, with an average daily volume of $10 million, while FET has experienced a 3% increase in volume, with an average daily volume of $8 million (CoinMarketCap, 2025). This suggests that traders might be positioning themselves in anticipation of future AI developments impacting the crypto market. The correlation between Bitcoin and these AI tokens remains low, with a correlation coefficient of 0.1 as of the same timestamp, indicating that movements in Bitcoin do not significantly influence AI token prices (CryptoCompare, 2025). Traders interested in AI-crypto crossover should monitor these tokens closely for potential trading opportunities as AI developments continue to unfold.