Bitcoin Whales Are Back to Buying Up BTC, Analysis Shows

The appetite Bitcoin whales have for more coins has returned for the first time since the price of Bitcoin reached its all-time high in March, according to blockchain data.

“They are now returning with a strong buying force again, indicating that the current prices are suitable for purchasing and accumulating despite the widespread fear,” market intelligence firm CryptoQuant tweeted on Friday.

Analysts cited a rise in the 30-day percentage change in whale address holdings, alongside a rising total BTC balance held by whales. In on-chain terms, a ‘whale’ is the owner of any Bitcoin address holding between 1,000 BTC and 10,000 BTC, excluding those controlled by mining firms and crypto exchanges.

“In general, whales buy Bitcoin at a faster pace during bull markets and decrease their buying when the market switches to a bear market,” CryptoQuant head of research Julio Moreno told Decrypt.

Throughout March, whales had increased their BTC holdings by over 9.8%. They continued stacking in April, but their rate of accumulation slowed to just 4.2% by May 1, at which time Bitcoin’s price had cratered over 20% from its highs to under $57,000.

As of May 22, the metric had returned to 5.5%, meaning whale accumulation was back on the rise after the market bottomed. In early May, CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju noted that whales had scooped up 47,000 BTC during the drastic market dip.

Bitcoin’s price has lifted to $68,760 as of this writing, up about 3% for the week.

According to Moreno, the amount of money invested in Bitcoin by whales has more than doubled from $57 billion to $122 billion since the start of the year. This is measured by observing whale owners’ “realized cap”—the total value of all whale coins based on the time that each coin was bought, rather than their current market value.

Lead Glassnode analyst James Check said on Wednesday that the Bitcoin network’s total realized cap has now reached an all-time high of $578 billion, “meaning the fundamentals of Bitcoin have literally never been stronger.”

“In my view, we're quite far from the true euphoria phase of this bull market,” Check added. “You could argue we're on the boundary between enthusiasm and excitement, but not yet euphoric.”

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.