The number of Bitcoin wallets with 100 BTC or more just hit a 17-month high. According to blockchain analytics platform Santiment, this increase was driven by a notable increase in whaling over the past month.
In an X post on August 31, Santiment shared that over 283 wallets with at least 100 BTC emerged in the last month alone. With this addition, “16,120 such wallets on the network have surpassed the 17-month high,” Santiment said.
Impatient sale
Santiment attributed the rise in whaling to small traders who “eagerly” dumped their holdings on bigger players amid recent price falls.
“As crypto prices have pushed retail traders lower, Bitcoin whales are growing in number,” the analysts said.
In a separate post, crypto analyst Axel Adler noted that traders could be bearish due to pressure not to risk selling below their entry point.
“For exactly one month, short-term holders (1-3 months) have been trading at a loss. In the current bull market, the metric has not fallen below 17%, the current figure is -8% . If it continues to decline, the number of people willing to sell coins at a loss could double,” he told X.
Buying the Dip
Santiment also revealed that wallets with at least 10 BTC (known as sharks) are also accumulating more assets. According to the analytics platform, whales and sharks have collectively amassed 133,000 BTC (worth approximately $7.6 billion) over the past 30 days. Instead, the analyst added that small traders are dumping their holdings amid near-term price weakness.
Meanwhile, Vivek Sen, the founder of Bigrow Lab, noted a historical pattern between increased whale activity and the price of bitcoin. He noted that BTC hit a new peak the last time whales amassed much of the digital asset.
However, the increase in whale activity has not yet affected the price of BTC. At the time of writing, the cryptocurrency was trading near $59,000, which represents an 8% decline over the past week.
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