The extended cryptocurrency bear market, which has seen the market capitalization of all digital assets drop from an all-time high of over $800 billion in late January 2018 to currently around $130 billion, appears to have motivated many crypto whales to accumulate large amounts of cryptoassets.
Buying The Opportune Dips
According to the “top 100 rich list” for cryptocurrency, compiled by Bitcoin.com, there are certain “whale wallets” that have been steadily increasing their crypto holdings – with every drop the digital asset market has experienced since December 2017. When crypto prices plummeted on February 24th, a number of whales reportedly bought large amounts of bitcoin (BTC) and bitcoin cash (BCH).
With the exception of the four largest crypto wallets that belong to Binance, Bitstamp, Bitfinex, and Huobi, many of the large bitcoin holders are still unknown. According to reports, the 100 richest or largest wallet addresses are holding somewhere between 10,000 to 1,000,000 bitcoins – which is roughly equivalent to about 16% of all BTC in circulation.
Between December 17th, 2018 and February 25th, 2019, the four largest wallets associated with the exchanges (mentioned above) had increased their holdings by 2,879 BTC, an amount valued at approximately $10.8 million. In comparison, the remaining top 100 largest crypto addresses accumulated 151,505 BTC, which is currently valued at over $577 million according to CryptoCompare data.
Bitcoin Cash Whales Have Also Been Accumulating
The reports also revealed that some of the richest bitcoin wallets that had been inactive for years seemed to be following similar accumulation patterns. It appears that these wallet holders believe cryptocurrency prices have bottomed – as they’ve been acquiring more bitcoins since November 2018.
Meanwhile, the top 100 largest bitcoin cash (BCH) wallets have also been accumulating as digital asset prices were falling. There are only 195 bitcoin cash addresses that hold between 10,000 and 1,000,000 BCH. This represents around 26.5% of all BCH in currently in circulation. Moreover, the top 100 BCH wallets have been acquiring large amounts of BCH, especially after the selloff that occurred on February 24th.
Notably, a BCH address which holds 57,889.45 BCH (appr. $7.8 million) has been acquiring a lot of cryptocurrency since December 2018. There are also 103,382 bitcoin cash addresses that have between 10-100 BCH, which accounts for about 20.66% of total BCH in circulation. Although there’s a difference between the distribution BCH and that of BTC, the BCH whales (like the BTC whales) appear to be accumulating large amounts of cryptocurrency every time crypto prices drop. In fact, the five largest bitcoin cash wallets have acquired 138,014 BCH (appr. $19.2 million) since December 2018.
