Bitcoin: Whales hoard BTC as market gets ready for a big next week

• Whale transactions jumped to their highest level since June 2o22.
• Clearance for spot Bitcoin ETFs was expected next week.

Bitcoin [BTC] lost some of the gains established earlier in the week as the crypto market went into perhaps one of the most suspenseful weekends in some time.

According to AMBCrypto’s reading of CoinMarketCap data, the king currency was trading at $43,700 as of this writing, dropping from the higher $45,000 zone.

Interestingly, the decline corresponded with a period of significant trading activity by whale investors.

Whales stocking up Bitcoin

As per on-chain analytics firm Santiment, a total of 34,874 transactions worth over $100,000 were recorded on the 3rd and 4th of January. Notably, this was the highest level since June 2022.

The previous record was set in the two days between 11th June and 12th June, when more over 39,000 transactions were registered.

Source: Santiment

Apparently, the frenzy was driven by small whales. After digging further, AMBCrypto observed a noticeable spike in the addresses holding between 100 and 10,000 BTCs.

Source: Santiment

It was highly likely that whales brought the dip as short-term holders decided to cash in on BTC’s surge past $45,000.

Whales were also having higher long exposure than retail investors on top crypto exchanges as of this writing. AMBCrypto’s analysis of Hyblock Capital’s data showed positive values of Whale vs Retail Delta Indicator.

Source: Hyblock Capital

Ready for celebrations?

The accumulation reflected whales’ continuing optimism on BTC. Note that the date for a decision on the 11 spot ETF applications was around the corner.

Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart reported that all the 11 issuers submitted a final version of a key document called 19b-4 filings.

Read BTC’s Price Prediction 2023-24

This brought spot Bitcoin ETFs one step closer to becoming a reality in the United States.

The last and final formality of submitting the final S-1s was due 8 am ET Monday, paving way for the official clearance by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on the 11th of January, Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas mentioned.