Bitcoin Forum

Whales- are major players in the cryptocurrency market. To be considered a whale, it is necessary to have from 1000 to 10,000 bitcoins. Whales are often accused of atypical market behavior and significant growth or decline in the value of cryptocurrencies. Price jumps caused by whales are called waves. As a result of such waves, inexperienced players (hamsters) sell their cryptocurrencies, and whales buy them at reduced prices.

 Hamsters- are novice cryptocurrency traders who, due to lack of trading experience, are highly susceptible to mass panic as well as loss of profit syndrome, as a result of which they regularly buy or sell cryptocurrency at the most unfortunate moments.


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So this is the reason for this $1000 increase in price in 40 min yesterday? Then what about all the talky that cryptocurrency is independent of banks or country monetary policy, when any big fish can make influence like that?

it is not that simple. there is two parts about being a whale: 1. having a lot of money 2. knowing how to use it.
the second part is complicated so I won't get into it, just know that simply being rich doesn't mean they can become whales and be effective in a market.
about #1 you should know that there is no fixed number here, having a lot of money is a relative concept. you may say 1000BTC makes someone a whale in bitcoin market and also having 0.1BTC makes someone a whale in some altcoin's market. it depends on the size of the market which is mostly visible in form of daily volume and on orderbooks and size of orders in it. you can simply manipulate price of some altcoins with 0.1BTC while even having 1000BTC may not help you change anything about bitcoin price.

Big money Bitcoin players that show their hand in the Bitcoin market are termed as "whales” are the heavyweight players who move the market and can manipulate price if they so desire.
Hamsters are new and inexperienced traders in cryptomarkets.Due to their lack of knowledge and experience,they continually suffer loss or doesnt make big profits.

I think people who hold the biggest amount of bitcoin are the real whales, they could decide the trends of currency market

The people that are not owning between 1000 to 10,000 bitcoins cannot be simply categorized as being hamsters. If you owned 500 bitcoins today, it would be valued at $4 060 000 USD and I would rather call those people Dolpins or sharks. The people below 50 coins could be called "bait" fish.

The Whales & Hamster comparison is not making sense. You should rather stay with one species when you draw a comparison. It will also give you a wider variety of fish to play with. < Tuna / Stingray / Cob etc. >  ;D

Hamster here...:-D

According to the volume of transaction I would not be even a hamster, it would be a kind of worker ant.

so who are the over 10k owners?
bigger than whale, huh?

Whales can be very private people.  Just because you have 8000 coins doesn't mean they would be in an address with 8000 coins.  Those can be split into a few dozen or more wallets to help and hide the whale.  You can still sell OTC in this fashion and nobody would be the wiser.

In what category am I belong? I'm not a whale, well I'll categorized myself as hamster too. @OP how about those holders that doesn't hold much and are just neutral-average type of holders?

I would define your status as being on the same level as plankton < the small and microscopic organisms drifting or floating in the sea or fresh water, consisting chiefly of diatoms, protozoans, small crustaceans, and the eggs and larval stages of larger animals. > You should at least have about 10 bitcoins to qualify as bait fish.  ;D 

You know that the biggest Whales in the ocean, feed only on Plankton, right?

Haha!! I remember that chart of classifying the bitcoin holders, well even I have 10 bitcoins I'm still small and I'm just a bait. LOL!  ;D

Yeah yeah.  ;D

This kind of generalizes the people/traders behind every market movement, and that to me is somewhat inaccurate. You don't need to have 1000-10,000 bitcoins in order to become a whale. Even those with 50 bitcoins can move a certain coin's market if they so do wish, especially if there's profit to be made. As for those who doesn't have the financial capabilities as whales, some of them are inexperienced in trading, true, but there are still some modest traders that can compete when it comes to trading strategies and whatnot, they just don't have the $$$ to trade every so often.

In the investment market, the whales are simply the institutions (i.e. Banks, Hedge Funds).
In the bitcoin space, that's different. Every exchange is in fact a single entity. As others already said, you can move the market even with a "relatively" low amount of coins. Even a crowd of hamsters can be a whale, when they work all together (pump and dump techniques).

Crypto investment funds are most likely the new whales in the bitcoin ocean:
Pantera Capital
Bitcoins Reserve
Binary Financial
Coin Capital Partners
Falcon Global Capital
Fortress
Bitcoin Investment Trust
Global Advisors Bitcoin Investment Fund
Bitcoin Index Fund