Bitcoin Sharks & Whales Accumulated $821.5M During Dip: Santiment

On-chain data from Santiment shows that Bitcoin sharks and whales amassed around $821.5 million in assets during the latest drop in price.

Bitcoin sharks and whales recently added 40,557 BTC to their holdings

According to data from the analysis firm on the chain Sentiment, the sharks and whales were not behind the drop in price seen previously. The relevant indicator here is the “BTC supply distribution”, which tells us which wallet groups currently hold what percentage of the total Bitcoin supply.

Wallets are divided into these groups based on the total number of coins they currently hold. For example, the 1-10 coins cohort includes all wallets that have a balance between 1 and 10 BTC.

If the supply distribution metric is applied to this specific group, it will measure the percentage of BTC supply that wallets satisfying this condition as a whole currently hold.

Now, in the context of the current topic, the area of ​​interest is wallets that hold between 10-10,000 BTC. There are three different wallet groups that fall within this range, so here’s a chart showing the combined supply distribution data for those groups over the past month or so:

The value of the metric seems to have been climbing in recent days | Source: Santiment on Twitter

This coin series covers two important cohorts for Bitcoin: the sharks and the whales. Since these holders can have such large wallet amounts (the range converts to $225,000 at the lower end and $225 million at the upper limit), their movements can have a noticeable influence on the market, and for this reason their wallets can be the ones to watch after.

As shown in the graph above, the supply distribution of these sharks and whales has increased in March, meaning that the total percentage of BTC supply that is in their wallets has increased.

In total, these investors have added an additional 40,557 BTC to their holdings during this surge. With this latest accumulation, these investors now own around 67% of the entire circulating supply.

Interestingly, the price of the cryptocurrency had actually decreased while these sharks and whales were buying the coin. Usually, during price declines, these huge investors dump some of their holdings, as it is the selling by these holders themselves that is often behind the price drop.

However, since this has not been the case this time around, it appears that the recent selloff may not have been driven by the sharks and whales. The fact that these investors rather bought during the price decline suggests that they still have a bullish belief about Bitcoin and saw the decline as a profitable accumulation opportunity.

It also appears that the buying pressure from these whales has ended up having a positive effect on the coin, as the asset’s price has seen a sharp rally over the past 24 hours.

BTC price

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading around $22,300, down 1% in the last week.

Looks like the price of the cryptocurrency has sharply surged in the past day | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView

Featured image from Sebastian Pena Lambarri at Unsplash.com, Charts from TradingView.com, Santiment