According to Bitcoiner Willy Woo, Bitcoin’s oldest whales may be responsible for the cryptocurrency’s sluggish price movements this cycle, noting that it now requires over $110,000 of new capital to absorb each Bitcoin they sell.
“BTC supply is heavily concentrated among OG whales who maximized their holdings back in 2011,” Woo stated in a post on X on Sunday. “They acquired their BTC for $10 or less.”
“This difference in cost basis, combined with the supply they hold and their selling rate, has significant effects on the amount of new capital required to push prices up,” the veteran Bitcoiner explained.
Whale blamed for Bitcoin flash crash to $112K
This comes as the crypto community pointed to a long-time Bitcoin whale’s shift from BTC to ETH, which allegedly led to a $45 billion drop in Bitcoin’s market cap on Sunday.
The whale is believed to have converted over $2 billion worth of Bitcoin into Ether in the past week, causing a wave of sell orders across the market.
The flash crash saw Bitcoin (BTC) plummet nearly 2.2% from $114,666 at 7:31 pm UTC to $112,546 within nine minutes, before reaching a low of $112,174 at 8:16 pm UTC, according to CoinGecko data.
During the same period, ETH also decreased sharply by 4%, dropping from $4,937 to $4,738. Nonetheless, both cryptocurrencies managed to recover about half of the losses sustained during the flash crash.
Many users on X have highlighted a crypto whale’s transfer of Bitcoin to the decentralized perpetuals platform Hyperliquid since August 16, moving 24,000 BTC (approximately $2.7 billion) across six transactions over the last nine days, according to Blockchain.com data.
Out of this, 18,142 BTC valued at $2 billion has been sold, with most being converted into 416,598 ETH, as stated by crypto analyst MLM, who suggests that the whale appears to be facilitating another set of wallets transferring Bitcoin to Hyperliquid for further ETH acquisitions.
A total of 275,500 ETH, valued at around $1.3 billion, has been staked, indicating that the whale’s shift to ETH could be part of a long-term strategy.
Whale’s profitable trading strategy contributed to the crash
The whale has also taken long positions on 135,263 ETH on Hyperliquid, achieving a total exposure of 551,861 ETH — exceeding $2.6 billion — and strategically positioning trades to stay ahead of other rapidly acting market players, thus netting a profit of $185 million on the ETH/BTC trade, according to MLM.
These long ETH positions gained value as traders reacted positively to the whale’s earlier spot purchases.
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However, as the whale began to close these long positions, the market recognized the trading strategy, leading traders to reverse their positions with a flood of sell orders, as MLM noted on Telegram.
“He effectively front-ran those who were trying to front-run him.”
More Bitcoin could be offloaded
Sani, the founder of TimechainIndex.com, also pointed out that the Bitcoin whale still retains 152,874 Bitcoin across various wallet addresses.
The funds, originating from crypto exchange HTX (formerly known as Huobi), had been inactive for approximately six years until August 16, according to Sani.
Another whale converted BTC into ETH last week
In a related event, another Bitcoin whale sold $670 Bitcoin, valued at $76 million, to initiate a long position in ETH last Thursday — showcasing the rising trend of crypto whales selling BTC in favor of ETH.
ETH has surged 220% since hitting a low of $1,471 on April 9, recovering lost ground against Bitcoin and Solana (SOL), which initially led the current bull cycle.
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