Bitcoin Forum

During the current dip, it appears that whales have been selling and the only groups where supply have been increasing is those with less than 1 BTC (likely retail).

This is generally a bad sign as whales generally are the smart money who have insider information and a larger influence of the market.

Thoughts?

https://mobile.twitter.com/WClementeIII/status/1399778208438960129/photo/1

Well, having seen how the market moved for the past few weeks is no surprise to me that whales are creating such a 'coordinated' market move to sway the market up and down thus favouring their actions. This is something I pointed to a while back (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5338628.msg57047882#msg57047882).

As for the small gainers it could just be FOMO individuals who buy in as little as they can. Perhaps, retailers but I don't see much evidence for that. Either way what's clear is that the landscape is changing and a smart investor will prepare for whats to come.

or what you really see is its lots of minnows selling and buying. but what happens on an exchange is not what happens on the blockchain

exchanges are the hoarders not whales.
what people think are whales are actually exchange cold stores

and yes they have to break their cold stores to make payments.
so when you see large amounts move. its not a whale. its an exchange breaking its cold store

those whales(non exchanges) that hold more then 100btc. are hoarding still
majority of coin movements onchain of 100+ are exchanges simply re-organising their coldstores


in short.. exchanges have broke their 10k+ coldstores and paid out into smaller 'warm' wallets of <1k coin to then pay out to users. or reaccumilate later back into >1k+ cold stores later

Do you have any data to support this or is that just a gut feel?

In this unhealthy trend, many sellers panic, it will be an opportunity for some whale organizations to band together and manipulate the market, like the scenario of btc for many years.  When the crypto industry was not very regulated, noa was the preferred way for FUD to operate.

Presumably whales manipulate markets so they could buy back in at lower prices through the cascading effect of liquidating levered long positions and inexperienced retail investors panic selling.

But during the current dip, we don't see any evidence of whales buying back in. We see evidence that retail investors are actually not panic selling, in fact they are accumulating (as demonstrated by the continued increase in supply held by people with < 1 BTC, see chart in my link above).

If whales are not buying back in, is it possible that they see the market as being overextended and will sit out for some time (potentially next market cycle) before coming back in?

The accumulation of elephants will continue to happen so they will have to buyback. Small individual purchases will make the Bitcoin network more decentralized.
It is decentralization that is the main factor leading to the growth of the market, so we do not need to worry too much. In the big picture, the amount of Bitcoin being withdrawn from the market is still increasing.

https://i.imgur.com/sXX399t.jpg