Whales offloaded 140K Bitcoin this month: Glassnode

Whales have been offloading their BTC this month after a sustained period of accumulation.

According to a new report from crypto market data aggregator, Glassnode, Bitcoin whales offloaded massive amounts of BTC during February.

Glassnode defines any address that holds between 1,000 BTC and 10,000 BTC as a “whale”, while “humpback whales” hold more than 10,000 BTC. The report found that the number of whales increased by more than 14% in the year to Feb. 5, 2021.

Whales and humpbacks’ buying spree peaked in January as they snapped up 80,000 BTC, worth $3.84 billion at today’s prices.

But since February, whales and humpbacks appear to have taken heavy profits, offloading 140,000 BTC — equal to $6.72 billion since the start of the month.

The data shows an inverse-correlation between the trading activities of whales to smaller, but still very wealthy investors. Glassnode noted that “dolphins” and “sharks” — wallets that hold between 100 BTC and 1,000 BTC — shed 95,000 BTC worth $4.56 billion in January, but flipped bullish in February, collectively accumulating 117,000 Bitcoin ($5.61 billion) since the start of the month:

“Important to note is how the supply changes for the Dolphin/Shark class (purple) and Whale/Humpback class (green) are mirrored in volume and shape. Where one class sees increasing volume, the other sees decreasing volume (and vice-versa).”

“Octopus” and “Fish” — wallets that hold between 10 BTC and 100 BTC — have been consistently offloading their holdings since November 2020, selling more than 128,000 Bitcoin or $6.14 billion in less than four months.

The 20% BTC price crash this week sparked a lot of action for the whales and was front run by one clever whale who managed to cash out $156 million before the dip began on Monday.

Fears of a further down-trend may not eventuate as new research from trading platform CrossTower argues that institutional buying will hold BTC above $50,000 in the long term.