Crypto whales have been especially active this year.
In particular, an anonymous BTC "whale address" has caught the attention of the crypto community.
At the time of writing, this address has managed to rake in hundreds of millions worth of BTC and has shown no signs of slowing down.
Is this the work of some anonymous super whale, or is it simply a crypto exchange, moving funds around?
If it IS a whale, why are they moving funds now in particular?
Let's go over a few facts:
This whale in particular, (bc1qc…) currently holds a little more than 12,000 BTC, as per data from Arkham Intelligence:
Arkham intelligence calculates this Bitcoin stash to be worth more than $465 million at the time of writing.
According to data from Blockchair, this wallet has transacted a total of 162 times. Arkham provides additional data, showing that this wallet only started receiving BTC transfers a month ago, with the first one being a $3.77 million withdrawal from BitMex.
And of all these 162 transactions, not one Bitcoin has left this address, as shown by Blockchair.
Some crypto influencers have suggested that the address belongs to a "whale". Others have so far, speculated that this address might belong to a crypto exchange, (likely BitMex).
A good example is Wealth Mastery founder Lark Davis, who speculates that this address might belong to a whale:
Lark Davis speculates that Institutional investors may be trying to "front-run" the incoming Spot Bitcoin ETF approval by accumulating large amounts of Bitcoin before the rush begins.
At the same time, other analysts have tried to debunk the whale theory.
According to these analysts, this is most likely an exchange address and not a single whale.
Analysts have speculated that this and several others that have been moving Bitcoin throughout the year, might even belong to some of the U.S. asset management giants like Blackrock, Valkyrie and 21 Shares, hoping for approval of their Bitcoin ETF filings with the SEC.
If an ETF is eventually approved, these asset managers will need to hold a significant amount of Bitcoin, to meet the possible demand for the ETFs. This explains the sudden surge of wallets buying Bitcoin.
One example is a major Bitcoin address that was created just after Bitcoin was launched in 2009.
In April this year, this wallet moved 400 BTC, (worth around $11 million at the time) to another unknown wallet address, according to data from bitinfocharts.
Another incident involved a wallet that had been inactive since 2010. This wallet seemingly "woke up" and moved 279 BTC (worth around $8 million) to some other address in this transaction.
Less than a few days after that, another address moved about $1.2 million worth of Bitcoin for the first time since 2008, after 15 years of dormancy.
Disclaimer: Voice of Crypto aims to deliver accurate and up-to-date information, but it will not be responsible for any missing facts or inaccurate information. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile financial assets, so research and make your own financial decisions.