Bitcoin whales typically capture the stagnant market conditions to accumulate more coins. This trend continued even during the underwhelming price performance of Bitcoin in recent months, as new analysis suggests a dramatic uptick in whale activity during the period.
Glassnode’s latest edition of “The Week On-Chain,” observed that the aggregate Whale balance has declined by approximately 255k BTC since May 30. This was found upon isolating coins flowing between Whale entities and exchanges.
- According to the on-chain intelligence platform, this trend represented the largest monthly balance decline in history, hitting -148k BTC/month.
- The report suggested that there are “noteworthy shifts” happening within the Bitcoin Whale cohort.
- The Whale activity throughout 2023 has been primarily driven by short-term holders (STHs).
- This cohort of investors holds assets for a maximum of 155 days and has emerged as more common. It has also become evident that these newer investors are trading in local market conditions.
- As such, each rally and correction since the dramatic implosion of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX has witnessed a 10k+ BTC uptick in STH profit or loss, respectively.
- More recently, whales have been exceedingly contributing to exchange activity, accounting for 41% of the total; a major chunk of the whale inflows – nearly 82% – was directed to Binance.
“Whale-to-exchange netflows have tended to oscillate between ±5k BTC/day over the last five years. However, throughout June and July this year, whale inflows have sustained an elevated inflow bias of between 4.0k to 6.5k BTC/day.”