Cryptocurrency whales refer to wallet addresses that hold more than 1,000 BTC or large amounts of other crypto. The wallet owner(s) can be an individual or institutional investor. As a result of their large wallets, they can manipulate the market. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at whales, which are a big part of the crypto space. We’ll also take a look at what’s currently in focus for whales.
What are cryptocurrency whales?
Crypto whales are wallets that hold large amounts of crypto. Because they hold such a large amount of crypto, they can influence the market. It takes a while for anyone to call you a crypto whale. Overall, according to experts in the field, a crypto wallet should have around $10 million. This can be any cryptocurrency. Everything counts as long as you reach $10 million. Actually, there is a classification table as follows:
- Shrimps cost less than 1 BTC.
- Crabs hold assets between 1 and 10 BTC.
- Octopus holds assets between 10 and 50 BTC.
- A fish holds assets between 50 and 100 BTC.
- Dolphins hold assets between 100 and 500 BTC.
- Sharks have 500 to 1000 BTC.
- Whales, the biggest fish in the ocean, have a minimum of 1000 BTC.
- Humpback whales have more than 5,000 BTC.
So, as you can see, there is a whole hierarchy in the field. However, these are variable directives. Each cryptocurrency has its own criteria.
How do whales affect cryptocurrencies?
We already know that whales hold large amounts of crypto. As a result, any movement between wallets can affect the market. It’s common to see price fluctuations when whales start to move funds. There are also “whale watchers”. They usually tend to follow the behavior of the whale. For example, if a whale sells a large portion of its portfolio, the watcher might do the same. This will put pressure on the price. As a result, the price of this coin could drop further.
🚨 19,999,986 #MATIC (18,741,956 USD) transferred from #Binance to unknown wallethttps://t.co/mmN2M1Bd2c
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) October 27, 2022
However, this can also work in the opposite direction. Elon Musk announced that Tesla will receive $1.5 billion worth of BTC in February 2022. This caused the BTC price to increase by 17 percent. They can also sell a large portion of their assets. This results in a price drop. Then they can get the coins back at a cheaper price. The image below shows the popular small size tokens that whales are currently buying.
What cryptocurrency do whales buy?
The two biggest cryptocurrencies that crypto whales buy are BTC and ETH. They also like to accumulate stablecoins such as USDC, USDT and DAI. Currently, MATIC is popular with whales. However, in a rough way, their standard portfolios are as follows:
- stETH
- SHIB
- LOCUS
- MKR
- LINK
- BITDAO
- UNI
The picture below gives a good idea of what the whales are holding. However, it is worth noting that this situation may change over time.
Who are the biggest cryptocurrency whales?
It’s hard to know exactly who is a whale. Wallets are made up of nicknames. That is, there is no name attached to a wallet address. That’s why they sometimes get nicknames like BlueWhale0208. Also Whale Stats is a monitoring service. They use this kind of alias. There are other whale watching accounts like Whale Alert. On the other hand, there are some well-known whales. Some of them are as follows:
- Satoshi Nakamato – Said to have over 1 million BTC.
- Michael Saylor – CEO of Microstrategy.
- Winklevoss twins – owners of Gemini exchange. They allegedly hold more than 70,000 BTC.
- Sam Bankman-Fried – Owner of the FTX exchange. The Alameda Research organization has 2 billion funds.
According to available data, 85 BTC wallets hold about 14 percent of the entire BTC supply. 2200 wallets hold 45 percent of all BTC. There is a wallet that holds about 28 percent of all DOGEs.
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