Whales panic as market corrects

Bitcoin and Ethereum are struggling as October comes to a close, sparking fear, doubt and uncertainty among major shareholders.

Bitcoin (BTC) is down 1.75% in the last 24 hours and is trading at $68,500 at the time of writing. Its market cap currently stands at $1.35 trillion with a daily trading volume of $23 billion.

According to data provided by IntoTheBlock, the amount of daily whale transactions consisting of at least $100,000 worth of BTC began to decline as the price of the asset fell; It fell from $67.8 billion on October 29 to $21.1 billion on November 2.

Large BTC transactions | Source: IntoTheBlock

Leading altcoin Ethereum (ETH) has recorded similar momentum to Bitcoin. ETH is down 2.2% over the past day and is changing hands at $2,450 at the time of reporting. Its market value is close to 300 billion dollars.

Large Ethereum transactions also fell from $8.1 billion on October 29 to $2.5 billion yesterday.

Large ETH transactions | Source: IntoTheBlock

Sharp declines in whale activity often indicate FUD and market-wide panic.

Two main reasons

One of the reasons for the decline is the uncertainty regarding the US presidential elections planned to be held on November 5.

According to a report on Friday, Ryan Lee, principal analyst at Bitget Research, told crypto.news that the crypto “market is awaiting future management, whether led by it.” [Donald] Trump or [Kamala] Harris may adopt a friendlier stance towards the cryptocurrency industry.”

Another reason may be that spot BTC exchange-traded fund outflows begin on November 1. These US-based investment products saw net outflows of $54.9 million on Friday, according to a crypto.news report.

Spot ETH ETFs in the US also saw net outflows of $10.09 million on the same day.

Spot BTC ETF outflows follow seven consecutive days of inflows. These ETFs in particular saw net inflows of over $5 billion in October.