Bitcoin Whales in One of Most Aggressive Accumulation Cycles in History: Details

According to popular on-chain data aggregator Santiment, whales have resumed buying the flagship digital currency Bitcoin, increasing their stashes frantically.

“One of the most aggressive accumulations in history”

Recently, Santiment shared on Twitter that Bitcoin wallets of small and medium size have recently bought a large amount of BTC. These addresses hold from 0.1 Bitcoin to 100 BTC, and in the past half year, they have accumulated around 9% of their holdings to their stashes. The Santiment team stressed that this was one of the most aggressive purchasing cycles in the history of crypto.

According to a Santiment post, these whales previously accumulated Bitcoin en masse during the bull run back in 2017. After BTC reached its ATH of around $20,000, they sold part of their stash. As a price drop to the bottom followed, they resumed buying and also accumulated until the end of 2020.

Since the leading crypto fell below $20,000 recently, these whales have been accumulating it aggressively. The Santiment report concludes that big investors like that are often correct in price expectations in the long run, but they fail to predict short-term fluctuations in the market.

🦈 Small to mid sized #Bitcoin addresses (0.1 to 100 $BTC) have been on one of their most aggressive accumulation cycles in history, adding 9% to their holdings in just the past 6 months. Read about them, $ETH, $LTC, and $ADA in our latest community post. https://t.co/jCNKcW8te1 pic.twitter.com/EBaanqNqk5

— Santiment (@santimentfeed) January 3, 2023

Whales’ take on Ethereum and ADA

Whales of similar size have also been buying Ethereum in the past few years, according to the report. They sold only in March 2019, when ETH spiked above $150 and then also in 2020, when the price surpassed $500.

They have been buying now since the ETH price crash in 2021.

Still, despite accumulating BTC and ETH, these investors have been selling Cardano’s ADA since its peak of $1.3 in the fall 2021. Since then they have been net-selling ADA. The report shows that these whales have been doubting the potential of ADA.

Sharks and whales dump Bitcoin

An earlier tweet from Santiment, published on Dec. 31, stated that, unlike smaller whales mentioned above, sharks and whales who hold between 10 and 10,000 Bitcoins have been heavily selling off their BTC.

Overall, since Bitcoin hit a historic peak in November last year, these addresses have sold a cumulative $10.75 billion worth of the top crypto by market cap — BTC. This cumulative sell-off, Santiment reckons, was one of the reasons that led the market to “a sputtering end to 2022.”

📊 Since 2 weeks before the Nov, 2021 #Bitcoin #AllTimeHigh, shark & whale addresses holding 10 to 10,000 $BTC have dumped a collective $10.75B. This drop, combined with circulation drying up, has led to a sputtering end to 2022. Read our year-end report. https://t.co/dnnIwjyE9f pic.twitter.com/967MTOfKRO

— Santiment (@santimentfeed) December 31, 2022

At the time of this writing, the flagship digital currency is exchanging hands at $16,674 per coin, according to the CoinMarketCap data.