The slow price action of Bitcoin this cycle may be attributed to its oldest whales, as Bitcoiner Willy Woo suggests, noting that it now requires over $110,000 of new capital to absorb each Bitcoin they sell.
“The BTC supply is concentrated around OG whales who maximized their holdings in 2011,” Woo stated in a post on X this Sunday. “They acquired their BTC at $10 or less.”
“This cost basis differential, combined with their supply and selling rate, significantly affects the amount of new capital required to raise the price,” the OG Bitcoiner elaborated.
Source: Willy Woo
Whale blamed for Bitcoin flash crash to $112K
This comes as the crypto community pointed to a longstanding Bitcoin whale’s shift from BTC to ETH to explain Bitcoin’s $45 billion market cap drop on Sunday.
The whale reportedly converted over $2 billion worth of Bitcoin into Ether in the past week, inciting a chain of sell orders throughout the market.
The flash crash caused Bitcoin (BTC) to drop nearly 2.2% from $114,666 at 7:31 pm UTC to $112,546 in just nine minutes, bottoming out at $112,174 by 8:16 pm UTC, according to CoinGecko data.
During the same timeframe, ETH also dropped sharply by 4% from $4,937 to $4,738. Nevertheless, both cryptocurrencies managed to regain approximately half of their losses from the flash crash.
Bitcoin’s price change over the last 24 hours. Source: CoinGecko
Many on X highlighted a crypto whale that began shifting Bitcoin to the decentralized perpetuals platform Hyperliquid on August 16, transferring 24,000 BTC ($2.7 billion) across six transactions in nine days, according to Blockchain.com data.
Of this, 18,142 BTC, valued at $2 billion, has already been sold, mostly rotated into 416,598 ETH, as reported by crypto analyst MLM, who suspects the whale is using another set of wallet addresses to transfer Bitcoin to Hyperliquid for more ETH purchases.
A total of 275,500 ETH, amounting to around $1.3 billion, has been staked, indicating that the whale’s transition to ETH might be part of a long-term strategy.
Whale’s profitable trading strategy contributed to the crash
The whale also held long positions for 135,263 ETH on Hyperliquid, totaling an exposure of 551,861 ETH — exceeding $2.6 billion — strategically initializing trades to preempt other rapidly acting market operators and amassing a $185 million profit on the ETH/BTC transaction, according to MLM.
These long ETH positions appreciated in value as other traders positively responded to the whale’s earlier market activities.
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However, as the whale began to liquidate its long positions, the market recognized its trading approach, leading traders to reverse their positions and generate a wave of sell orders, noted MLM on Telegram.
“He effectively outmaneuvered those attempting to compete against him.”
Source: Jacob King
More Bitcoin could be offloaded
The founder of TimechainIndex.com, known as Sani on X, also pointed out that the Bitcoin whale still possesses 152,874 Bitcoin across various wallet addresses.
These funds originated from the crypto exchange HTX (previously Huobi) around six years ago and had remained dormant until August 16, Sani noted.
Another whale converted BTC into ETH last week
Additionally, another Bitcoin whale sold $670 Bitcoin valued at $76 million to initiate a long position in ETH last Thursday, indicating a growing trend of crypto whales offloading BTC for ETH.
ETH has surged 220% since hitting a low of $1,471 on April 9, regaining lost ground compared to Bitcoin and Solana (SOL), which led the initial phases of the current bull market.
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