News of a Bitcoin (BTC) movement of nearly half a billion dollars is sweeping through the cryptoverse.
Ivan Liljeqvist of Ivan on Tech spotted the massive transaction, which moved 46,835 BTC worth $431 million at time of publishing. The fee for moving the trove of BTC was less than $3.00.
The receiving wallet, which was created in September of last year, has a long history of sending and receiving large amounts of crypto. The activity suggests it may be owned by an exchange or a custodian holding large amounts of BTC on behalf of its customers.
Aside from this massive transfer, Bitcoin whales have been relatively quiet since the halving, as BTC hovers in the $9,000 range.
New data from the crypto analytics firm Glassnode shows the seven-day moving average of the number of Bitcoin whales holding 10,000 or more BTC is at its highest level since August of 2019.
Meanwhile, the number of whales holding 1,000 or more BTC has been on the steadily on the rise and is now up 24% since October of 2018. Glassnode says the shift suggests that overall, high net worth Bitcoin investors as a group are long BTC.
“The number of whales (i.e. entities with at least 1000 BTC) increased leading up to [the March 12th] market crash, and accelerated during and after the crash. This suggests that larger market players are accumulating BTC, providing an optimistic sign.
This trend implies that despite an uncertain market environment, whales remain confident that now is a good time to be accumulating BTC, suggesting that they believe there is further room for growth.”