Bitcoin Forum

How many BTC do you need to be considered a whale in the altcoin markets. I consider a whale anyone who moves markets significantly when their open positions are set up causing massive walls or when they can make a big affect by just exiting or entering a position. So would 500 BTC make someone a whale or is even less needed in the alt coin market?

Interesting question when you can call someone a whale. they are really rich but not sure what is the minimum amount of BTC.

Go to BTC e and see those walls 100 to 300 btc those are small whales. If you go to Bittrex you can see alts you can see almost 50 wallets have over 1000 ETH and some of them have over 10000 of eth. You know now who are the whales and what they are doing..

A whale is always a little bit bigger than you so it keeps you buying the coin all the time.  :-*

I think it also depends on the altcoin, for ETH and other high volume coins 100-200 BTC buys or sells won't really have a huge impact on the price. But in others a 200 BTC buy will definitely increase the price even by 50% or more...so basically it depends on the market, all of them are whales but they turn into bigger or smaller whales depending on the sea they are moving in hehe.

In the FX world its above 100 Mio$    ;D
Since BTC is just a fraction 100k will move the markets already!

For some altcoins its only a couple of bitcoins or even less, for the more popular altcoins its way more.

Yes and think about how small a whale you'd need to be to move a shitcoin that trades for 2 satoshis or something like that.   It all depends on the size and depth of the market you're talking about.

I think someone must have at least 1,000 bitcoins to be called whale in the crypto world

Well not only having a large amount of coins, in this case I would agree 1,000 is a good amount to be called a whale, but also the willingness to put such an large amount on the exchanges in order to manipulate markets. You may have 1,000 BTC, but may only be comfortable putting 100 or so of that amount on exchanges, so in this sense you still would not be a whale in terms of trading. So to be a true whale, you would need 10,000 BTC (or its equivalent ~$4,000,000) and only risk 10% of that on exchanges.

I find it fascinating to watch some of the big players wallets fluctuate in value and then just know there's gonna be some volume. The anonymous transparency of crypto sure beats the fiat system. Nowhere do you get to watch others accounts like in crypto explorers. 

Impossible question. It is all relative.

To a 9 year old chasing BTC faucets, someone with 1 BTC is extremely wealthy.

Back when Poloniex was averaging about 300 BTC trade volume daily, a person with 20 BTC could move most of the markets on there. BTC-e was basically the only high volume market with very few altcoins. Cryptsy had some varying volume but nothing like what we see now with Poloniex pulling down 50,000 BTC or more daily. Times have changed. It's definitely all relative when defining a whale.

The consensus here so far is correct.. Spoetnik Approved™

This topic title kept making me think of Blue Whales and the size of them..
This is a good thing!
Those mammals are monumentally mammoth!

https://i.imgur.com/HyfVJIu.jpg

I would consider someone who has more than 1m to play with a whale. So about 2500 BTC.
I think only the few top altcoins should be considered here. Yes someone could be in away considered a whale when he moves
some shitcoin markets with 0.1 BTC but I stick to my 1m/2500BTC rule.

In bitcoin space, someone with about 5000 BTC (based on me seeing a wall of that size during the last pump). On the alt side, about 20BTC, though some of the people playing with ETh are former BTC whales who have goten bored with bitcoin.   

For Ethereum, you need at least 100 bitcoin to be a whale.

there isn't really a set amount for being a whale since the whale is not an exact explanation. and i think it differs from market to market. but basically you can call anybody who has deep pocket and can control the market price if he whishes.
can be 1000BTC
or can be 10,000,000 [put altcoin name here]

And in relation to the distribution of BTC.
Get it ?
BTC top holders are rare.. people who have a super small amount are common.
So even though a super small BTC holder *may* be able to control a super small ALT market
i don't think that makes him a true whale.. more of a pseudo-whale of sorts LOL

I would think we have to attribute some rarity to the term "Whale"
In other words we all can't be whales.
Most of us have at times been able to control an entire market (on a coin nearly dead for example)
It often does not take much at all..
Would most of us be considered Whales then ?
no.

"It's relative" is a good reply but i think the distribution of BTC itself is key too.
Who has how much etc..

EDIT:
I would NOT specify an exact amount / limits etc.

Well, there's always the Woody Allen definition:

"A whale is someone who holds a lot more coins than I'll ever have."

 :P

A Basilosaurus typically grew to a size of 40 to 65 feet (12 to 20 meters) length.

http://img.enkivillage.com/s/upload/images/2014/12/ee44337c7b5d8b0b3f20a9da9ba56b8b.jpg

I define a whale as one that has enough assets that they can move/manipulate the market with bear/bull traps. With BTC this means at least 3-5k btc; alts can easily be manipulated with much less.

Well said... You can be a whale for one coin if you have the ability to move it like this or if you are to be called a whale for all of crypto you need to be able to do this for bitcoin and any of the others.

This is the Pseudorca crassidens (false killer whale) that you speak of?  :)

https://i.imgur.com/PiqRD1M.jpg

This is the guy that plays with 3 BTC on Yobit. Watch out for his presence as he can give you a false sense of market liquidity in a sea of shitcoin.

Well if we're trying to work out the definition then i have another thought..

I have seen a random guy come in that quite likely was a one time buyer.
This user just went to an exchange then bought a HUGE shitload of coins..
Such as Cryptsy + VTC (VertCoin)
All i seen was a bit of buying for a week or two then nothing ever again. (back in early 2014)
And he was throwing orders down for a million dollars then letting people dump into it like crazy.
I dumped all i had into it when he came back one of those times.

So i am asking you all would a one time large coin buyer be consider a Whale?
Me? I am not so sure.

I kept thinking back then too that when i mentioned it on Cryptsy Chat
that some users had chanted "Pump" like he was doing it to pump the coin or setup walls etc.
But he was NOT Pumping the coin at all!
And i had watched the guy carefully for a fair amount of time..
All he was doing is trying to throw down large buy orders then ALLOWING people to dump into it hard.
This person was simply trying to "BUY some coins"

So as per definition here people.. does intent matter?

Intent shouldn't matter.... That example is of an individual who at least temporarily could be considered a whale because they moved or manipulated the market to either pump a coin or just buy some coins. The whale swallowed all of the bag holders dumped coins in this example. In such scenarios it is also impossible to definitively determine intent. The imagery of a whale is one that can move or manipulate the surrounding environment around them because their displacement, thus a whale is best defined by the ratio of market liquidity/depth to the whales assets.

For me a whale is anyone whose moves have a big impact on the market.

So the amount of coins varies depending on each market depth.

I have to say that the troll attempt in this topic finally made me laught ;D

It obviously depends on which market.
To be a whale in the ETH market you need 600-800BTC.

In other markets you are a whale with 100-200BTC. (Some below, a few higher).

The daily volume of Ethereum is about 20,000 bitcoin. 800 bitcoin is just 4% of daily volume. Can you manipulate the market with so few coins?

Volume doesn't matter as much as Market depth and ether certainly has very shallow market depth. One thing that is confusing many is the false assumption that Ether's inflation is being supported by new investors when this isn't at all true. Ether is still relatively cheap and being mined with GPU's where many miner can afford to hodl their ETH in hopes for a big payday unlike BTC where Miners are forced to sell most their btc to new investors to pay for electricity and asic upgrades. The price of Eth could come crashing down much quicker and I'm sure many of the buy walls will vanish if much less than 800 btc worth of Eth were sold off by a whale.

The 800 bitcoin whale is just a small whale. If you look at the price surge or dump, several thousands of bitcoins are involved.

You are not considering the high inflation or the fact that it is really easy to pump up the market cap with a relatively small amount of BTC when almost none of the pre mine and newly mined coins are being sold. It is difficult to quantify how much of this new pump is from new investors as exchanges and day traders manipulate order books for profit so reviewing volume isn't a good indication of new adoption.

The same could be said with BTC market cap... It doesn't take much to drive down BTC's price, but a hell of a lot less to drive down ETH.

The person carrying amount of bitcoins which can be filled up in the belly of real blue whale... is known as whale of bitcoin. I'd say, 1000 bitcoin is enough for a whale.

its impossible to measure that.... it depends. The coin, the exchange, the hour.... everything counts.

For me, a whale is a person that can influence the price movement with his/her activities. For example, if he/she bought some coins then the coins price will be increasing significanly and when he/she sold the coins the price will be down significanly aswell. I saw some whales couple months ago when some people digging a bunch of clam coins from his btc and doge addies and then sold the clams at the lowest price and suddently the price move down so deep and till now the clam price stay at the lowest price.

The size of a whale can be measured by doubling half its size - hope i answered your question ;D

This did not give any useful information. I think a whale has enough power to manipulate the market for a few days.

Remember that margin trading is a thing - so someone can borrow large amounts of fiat to set up a buy wall and borrow large amounts of BTc to set up a sell wall - but in reality own a small amount, and are paying interest on the borrowed amounts.

Well it depend on the coin I think. 10 BTC can be large for a typical alt but for bitcoin it is nothing.
If you over over 20% of the coins you can be considered a whale.

this is an interesting question for sure.

i think you can not give an specific number for this thing because the crypto market is not just one or a couple of coins, there are a lot of them. from million dollar bitcoin market to couple of dollars shitcoins.

so you can say a whale is someone who can change the market by putting up walls in orderbook that nobody can pass over then look at each coin and decide how much he will need.

Nice informations, do you think this fish survived cold age and remain hidden until now?
Big whales are players who can invest more then a million dollars in something. With that money you can move the market in direction they wish. Of course some markets are easy to be moved, others can be more stable. But you are big whale if you can affect market even a little with your moves.
I would like to know how many whaless swim in bitcoin waters. And is there one basilosaurus in deep waters?