On-chain analysis suggests that the largest players in the industry known as whales came out of hibernation amid a surge in 5,000 to 10,000 BTC transactions.
In a new report, crypto exchange OKEx teamed up with blockchain firm Catallact to study the behavior of large-scale investors this year. The report reveals that whales came to life between May to July as the number of 5,000 to 10,000 BTC transactions spiked while Bitcoin’s price consolidated around $10,000.
“This upward trend suggests the possibility that institutions and/or large players got busy accumulating BTC as economic stimulus measures from central banks spurred on the purchase of hard assets. However, because we cannot cleanly differentiate what actual activity took place from the number of transactions alone, this only remains a speculative possibility.”
The crypto exchange offers two reasons that would explain the rise in whale activity. The first explanation is that one or more cryptocurrency exchanges were engaged in moving coins into a number of wallets for security purposes. OKEx also speculates that large institutional entities and big-time whales accumulated or unloaded substantial amounts of Bitcoin as the king crypto hovered around $10,000 with the assumption that BTC’s price would subsequently climb or fall.
According to the crypto exchange, the possibility that whales were busy accumulating as BTC consolidated aligns with the narrative that institutional players like Paul Tudor Jones invested in Bitcoin as a hedge against inflation.
“The possibility that big-money players and institutions accumulated BTC [between May to July] can also be seen when we examine the percentage of total BTC transactions that are of 100 BTC or more. These data clearly show not only the deviation from the COVID-related crash in March but also a deviation from mid-June until August – highlighting the possibility that whales took this time to accumulate in the expectation that prices would increase.”
OKEx also speculates that retail investors were shaken out during the Covid-19 crash in March while whales and smart money investors took the chance to buy the dip.
You can read the full report here.