In the cryptocurrency community, individuals or organizations that have large amounts of Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) and having the power to manipulate the value of bitcoin are known as bitcoin whales. The metaphor of whales is used because, when these big players move around the market, they disrupt the waters where smaller fish swim.
Source: Glassnode
Other players are referred to as different marine animals in the crypto space based on how much Bitcoin they hold. In the graphic above, Glassnode shows how much BTC belongs to each category.
Cryptocurrency whales, owning millions of dollars in bitcoin, have the power to move the markets on their own. Due to their concentration of wealth, they can lead to an increase in volatility, spark speculation among small fish and make prices more dependent on it than on the underlying fundamentals.
When a large seller sells many bitcoins at once for a fiat currency, the lack of liquidity and a large transaction size can create great selling pressure that drives other market participants to sell too.
According to BitInfoCharts, only three BTC wallets own 3.03% of all Bitcoins in circulation, and the top 100 wallets hold around 18% of all BTC.
Source: bitinfocharts.com
Below is the latest activity from the richest BTC wallets, according to BitInfoCharts.
Source: bitinfocharts.com
The first two wallets belong to exchanges. However, the third largest address is considered a non-exchange, so it is interesting to study its activity.
The purse 1P5ZEDWTKTFGxQjZphgWPQUpe554WKDfHQ currently holds 118,017.57 BTC valued at around $ 6.57 billion.
It has made a staggering $ 3.5 billion profit from BTC price swings throughout its activity since October 2019:
Source: bitinfocharts.com
Lately, the address has been piling up BTC in small amounts, a common move among whales trying to avoid getting noticed.
However, the latest transaction added a sizable portion of 2,702 BTC worth $ 136.99 million to the wallet.
Source: bitinfocharts.com
The last time Bitcoin was sent was on November 9, 2021, a day before the flagship crypto hit its all-time high. It was a 1,500 BTC transaction with a BTC value of $ 67,510.
Back then, 1,500 bitcoins were worth $ 110.2 million, an enormous sum.
Onchain statistics show that whales and long-term owners have been spending money lately, with blockchain parsers seeing tremendous activity in the past few days.
Chainalysis data shows that exchanges have seen massive inflows of BTC, with the number of BTC being released on Jan.
Source: chain analysis
Bitcoin whales: who are they? Satoshi Nakamoto
Bitcoin’s anonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, was also its first miner. Satoshi estimates he holds the largest bitcoin cache as he mined more than 22,000 blocks and earned over a million BTC as a reward. Satoshi’s identity remained unknown, but recent developments have taken some interesting turns.
In a major US lawsuit, Australian businessman Craig Wright, who claims to have invented bitcoin, was recently given the right to avoid paying tens of billions of dollars in bitcoins to a former business partner.
The jury stated that Wright is behind the pseudonymous Bitcoin whitepaper writer Satoshi Nakamoto. However, Wright’s claims are met with skepticism in the crypto community, in part because he was unable to move any of the original BTCs that Satoshi had mined. Personally, I still don’t think it’s the same person.
The Winklevoss twins
Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss, portrayed by Armie Hammer on The Social Network, were early Bitcoin enthusiasts. They reportedly hold more than 100,000 bitcoins, placing them at the top of the list.
Matthew Roszak
Another early adopter, venture capitalist Mark Roszak, bought his first bitcoin in 2012. He is now the chairman and co-founder of Bloq, a company dedicated to blockchain innovation. Roszak is also the chairman of the Chamber of Digital Commerce, the first blockchain trading organization.
Michael Saylor
Another crypto proponent is the founder, entrepreneur, and CEO of MicroStrategy. Saylor owns over 17,700 bitcoins and MicroStrategy bought over $ 1 billion worth of bitcoins last year. MicroStrategy is committed to getting more companies to use bitcoins. It even posted a Bitcoin company playbook on its website.
Tim Draper
Tim Draper is an American entrepreneur and venture capitalist who founded Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Draper Venture Network, Draper Associates, and Draper Goren Holm.
Ancestry.com, Twitch, Tesla, Hotmail, SpaceX, AngelList, Twitter, Coinbase, Robinhood, Hotmail, Skype and Boeing have all been invested by Draper. He is an advocate of bitcoin and decentralization.
Micree Zhan
Micree Zhan is the co-founder of Bitmain Technologies, a Bitcoin mining company. It is rumored that Zhan owns the second largest amount of Bitcoin wealth. It was Jihan Wu, Zhan’s former business partner, who translated Satoshi’s first Bitcoin whitepaper into Mandarin.
Chris Larsen
He was one of the first pioneers of the cryptocurrency. Larsen is the founder and former CEO of Ripple and the second richest Bitcoin billionaire. Despite his recent criticism of the cryptocurrency industry, Larsen is considered to be the richest person who has built all of his fortune on cryptocurrency. It is said to be worth more than $ 6 billion.
Changpeng Zhao
If you have one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, it makes sense that you should also be a leader in the Bitcoin industry. Changpeng Zhao founded Binance in 2017. Zhao’s net worth is estimated at around $ 1.9 billion, almost all of which comes from cryptocurrencies, mostly Bitcoin.
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