A whale-sized mystery is brewing as more than half a billion dollars in Bitcoin (BTC) is bouncing around numerous crypto wallets in less than a day.
The data-tracking bot WhaleAlert reports that exactly 14,712 BTC was sent 11 times between 12 different wallets in a 17-hour time frame.
The only number that changed was the total US dollar value as the markets went through price fluctuations.
The value of the BTC trove during the first send was $616.18 million, which dipped nearly 4% to as low as $591.87 million on the penultimate transaction.
The massive Bitcoin bag recovered slightly to $593.72 million by the time it completed its meandering journey across a dozen unique wallet addresses.
At time of writing, Bitcoin is down 2.6% in the past day and is trading for $39,731.
Analytics firm Glassnode says in a tweet that the overall bearish environment in crypto dating back to late 2021 is reshaping the BTC investor landscape.
“This bear market has restructured Bitcoin ownership, with BTC moving out of short-term speculative, and towards long-term investor hands.
On a statistical basis, it appears we have just seen the largest capitulation of both cohorts.”
Glassnode adds in its weekly newsletter,
“What we have seen over the last five months is a 50%+ correction that appears to have significantly reshuffled the ownership structure of BTC.
A great many long-term holders with coins above $50k appear completely unfazed, while others have been totally shaken out, at a historically significant rate.”
The firm also provides an in-depth video analysis of the situation and acknowledges that “even long-term holders appear to have capitulated during this bear market.”
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