Bitcoin Forum

If you are a web3 enthusiast, particularly those active in DeFi and crypto trading, let me know how often you use on-chain analytics platforms like Glassnode, Nansen, or Dune to track whale wallets and top traders' activities.

What do you do with those discoveries? Do you start buying what the whales or big investors are buying, no matter how small your funds are?  Or do you do these just to catch market trends?

I do not do this, but i am pretty sure there are poeple who do it. This is somewhat similar to copy trading, were people just replicate the trades of another trader, a more experienced trader though. The reason i won't do any of this is that i cannot just buy something because someone else is, does not matter if he is a Whale or an experienced trader.

I like to do my own research and i like my success to depend on me and my research, than on someone else.

How do you do your own research then? Don't your spy on what more experienced traders are buying at a time and the amount they put in which sometimes tells their level of confidence in the project, I guess.

However, I would like to do how you start your own independent research.
 

Doing one's research is not about spying on what whale is doing on their trade because that is risky since you also won't know when they will be pulling the rug off your feet. To do one's research is to study the market through charts, volumes, chain analysis, quantitative and qualitative understanding of the market, or fundamentals like news around the crypto space community sentiment or biase on the coin etc.

To follow a trader as copy trading is risky. It is better to take time to learn through your mistakes and build a strategy.

I don't follow what the whales does and never used those analytics platforms and tools for my trading. Charting is enough but it's also good to rely on some fundamentals if there are whales selling or buying. But, I'm just using possible resources that are normally seen by a normal trader. Someone who's too deep as a trader and tries to use these tools could be a great one but, I am not. Trying to catch up with the trends in the market is also part of the fundamental analysis.

I see some influencers who share in their videos that they always check whale wallets to see which coins are bought or stored in those wallets, believing that they can make a profit by following the trail of whatever the whales buy.

But I myself don't follow that approach we have our own research, although I don't need to explain it in detail to you It's possible that we have different understandings.
This includes following market trends, which people often do.

Most often I use such master strategy most especially from those traders that I have being following they track record of success, although it doesn't come out as predicted some time because of the nature of the Bitcoin market so trading Bitcoin is highly unpredictable when it comes to predicting the result of the trade if it will end in profits or even losing in that regards.

Taking advantage of these conditions can be quite profitable, but it also requires careful analysis of when to buy or sell. In certain contexts, following these trends isn't always a bad thing, as if we can capitalize on the situation, it can yield financial benefits. So far, I haven't been involved in investing or trading using this method, but I've seen some people do it to achieve their desired goals. The risks are also high, as sometimes whales will dump their coins, and you won't know when it will happen. If you're late, it can impact your assets or it could be that the assets you hold lose their selling value in the market.

Exactly! Some traders are skilled at using this method and it's been profitable for them. Recently, I even found Bitget introduced Smart Money Leaderboard event for their users to Spot a trending token on their exchange Onchain section, copy its CA, use onchain analytics to identify top traders and Submit their wallet addresses on the event page for reward. I feel it could be their way of popularizing this method of analysis because it works. The caution should be knowing when to buy (if you have to) and when to sell.

I used hypurrscan, the hyperliquid's explorer for this to find some whales opening large perp position on-chain.
Sometime there are large position with millions if not hundred millions and I believe that's a small hint on what's going on to the coin they longed and can be an opportunity.
To be fair, just because whale open large position doesn't mean they're right. I've seen position that get liquidated as well despite the large size. Basically you don't guaranteed to earn money through this method.

I Love your approach! Recognizing that even large whale positions don't guarantee success is key. It's all about identifying trends and making informed decisions. Risk management is crucial. Having insights into whale movements can certainly give traders an edge. Great share!

I have read before that it can help but I think otherwise. I only prefer to go for well known coins. And among them, I have special preference for bitcoin. But I have read that some people are using on-chain data like increasing trading volume to know the next coin to buy.

I prefer to buy when the market is red and people are afraid to buy. That is called the bear market. I like buying during bear market but most coins may not rise like before, that makes bitcoin and very few other coins the best option for me.

I found the post on their X (formerly twitter) handle. Didn't particularly know how to participate.
https://i.ibb.co/YBmnsxjf/1756400523494.png

I can not follow what whales do even with small money. When they buy a coin, I may be late to follow what they do so that will not give me profit. But I know some friends follow the whales and always check the top traders activities. But I don't know how many of them are making a profit from that. It's better to analyze by myself and find the coins. That can help me to improve my skills and learning more than just following the whales. We will always be followers and not a guide to ourselves.

When we see what whales are doing, we are already late. These market movers know large and quick transactions are being watched so they do every buying on small transactions with multiple wallets and accumulate over a long period of time. When you see a huge movement by whale, it means they have now started buying or selling the coin you are trying to jump in.

I have tried multiple such things but always faced loses. I have stopped following others or taking leverage. All I do now is grid trade and reverse grid trade the coin I believe in. Like a reverse grid bot I started with bitcoin is now in 24%+ profit for four months. i.e. it's has already earned me bitcoin 8% of my initial investment. Not a huge number like x100 but larger than many risky opportunities.

If you are tracking the positions of traders whom you consider more experienced than yourself, then this does not protect you from mistakes, since there is no guarantee that their assumption will be correct. To do this, it is enough to recall James Wynn, who recently lost about $100 million after his position on the Hyperliquid platform was liquidated.

I wish more people could understand that if you are seeing something, you are already late. This happens with news too, like some big news happens and then people see the news, and they try to react, if you saw the news, you are already late, go check the market and you will see that it already moved, and do not get in and do something after it already moved, makes no sense.

Like the other day it was rate cuts, it didn't get cut, the moment you see the news, literally that second, go check the market and you will see that it's already down. This is why it's quite obvious that we are not going to see it change that quickly, what would change on the long run and how you would react is important so realize it's too late after you see it.

I understand, but it's clear you spot what token is trending on their exchange Onchain section, track the token to see top traders or holders what and submit those addresses on the event page. I think it's just fun to get rewarded for stuff we traders do normally. Yeah.

Everyone has their own reasons to why they always keep up with checking for updates, knowing about the prominent individuals and whales buying and transferring coins from one address to another, but as you have asked also, i don't see wat some are benefiting by knowing about all these when they are not also investing, sometimes we just need to be more engaged than to be amazed on what is going on withing the crypto circles, because as we are doing these, some are making money, the earlier the better we work more on what's good for ourselves that we may also be the talk of the news headlines.

Exactly my thoughts! Discovering what the big guys are buying for instance, institutions, whales etc can influence your buy decision for a particular asset. Imagine you found a token whales are throwing in millions at 50Mil M Cap. You can easily predict that such token will reach above 500 Mil M Cap.

It's not as simple as it sounds, because even though this method is starting to be introduced, there are risks for beginners and anyone who enters or exits late. I've read about this, and Bitget and several local exchanges in my country are introducing Smart Money Leaderboard events for anyone to spot token trends. However, it's not without risks if one lacks analytical skills. The most important part here is being able to spot the moment to buy and sell, because if one is late, this method can actually cause someone to lose more money. Especially when talking about tokens that lack fundamentals, which are usually influenced only by hype, and they will be very risky in the long run.

It could be that many people are still looking at or seeing on-chain, seeing on-chain as a tool, and can provide additional insights that are very useful for understanding market behavior and the sentiment of large investors. I use the data as part of a broader investment strategy, not just to follow trends or copy them directly. And the strategy that I often use in good investments usually combines various sources of information, be it roadmaps, a coin's performance and market sentiment, and on-chain data. In this way, investment decisions are still based on comprehensive analysis and risk management can be managed better, investment decisions become more mature and measurable, not just by seeing what whales or big investors are doing.

But that will not be easy to find which coin or token gives you a hidden gem. You can see what whales buy but you don't know when the price rises. Although you can buy a small amount, you need to be careful and selective with the lists. Those whales will not tell their plan so you might just guess what will happen later.

That will need the right allocation of the money to buy. You can not just go all-in because the whales buy a coin. But many people don't seem to understand this and they prefer to go all-in because they think that the coin will increase soon. If you can allocate your funds correctly, you will have a chance to diversify your coin into many potential coins. But it still needs analysis to find the right coin.

The thing is, i do not play with altcoins, i am not into DeFi projects and i don't buy memecoins and stuff like that. That said, i am a bitcoiner whose first objective in crypto is to buy and hodl bitcoin, so i don't need to research into numerous altcoins, as altcoin investors have to do. I already underdstand most things about bitcoin, so i just keep accumulating, so that is it.

I do not have anything against your method and if you think it works for you, then keep doing it. It is not just my thing and i also know it is not as straightforward (in terms of success rate) as it sounds.

I often use Glass node to see the heat map for the liquidations because I have learned it fully and understand how to predict the market on the basis of it, and I usually follow the money and if the money is sitting below, shorting then the chances are high the market will short but if the money is too big it will short but the manipulation will be very high that retails investors won't like it.

I use dune ones but did not get it, I use soso and some other to get analytics of defi and other narratives. I don't buy whatever whales are buying but I usually sell for the time being what whales are selling so I could not lose much although whale tracking is very easy thanks to the tracker developers, if they can't be tracked, then it will be difficult to move with the money makers.

The goals of visiting these websites may vary widely, but for non-traders, they may simply use them to broaden their knowledge before ultimately making a decision to trade or invest in certain crypto assets often targeted by whales and large investors. Reading on such websites is also important, especially when it comes to buyer volume and current market trends. Therefore, their use may always depend on each individual's need for the information presented on the website.

The trouble with this method is that whales do not announce they will buy something before they buy it, hence you can't really know anything beforehand. It's going to be pretty hard to determine what the yare going to buy and that is why we should not be expecting that well right now, it's just not that easy. Of course it's not impossible, some people do it, but you do not have 100% correct rate anyway.

This is why if you really want to make some good return, then you are going to end up with a positive return while having some losses. I would suggest, do not be fixated on this, look for other ways to make money, but if you do happen to get something, then maybe give it a shot, be careful, and always have other plans as alternative.

I think tracking whales can be very useful!!! but it does not always mean you should copy everything they buy at all time because whales have way bigger funds and very different strategies compared to small avaerage traders in the market... sometimes they can also take risks that normal traders can not handle or even dream of!!! so blindly following them might lead to a lot of losses. I feel onchain analytics is more about understanding market trends and learning how money flows in the space....it gives ideas of where interest is going but i still try to do my own research and only invest what i am comfortable with so i will nnot later experience stories that touches the heart... truly!! whale tracking can be a good signal but it should not replace your own plan or risk management strategy.

This is no longer a problem again, there are bots now that you can use to track an address on some of this bots you can’t have a script that it should buy anything that the address is receiving, you can even set a price in usdt that it will use to buy the token. This way once the address gets to buy and receive any token the bot also buys for the person and this actually makes one early.

This is very common to Degen traders Who usually trade meme coins, they simply track whales and some insiders to copy there trade, this usually makes this traders early but the problem is that most of this whales have multiple wallets and some of the wallets this  traders are tracking are usually not even their main wallet

This is why nobody does this. Don't look at others who suggest this as a method, it's not going to happen and we can't get it done any way. It's clear that we are not going to see this as a good way to move forward with.

I mean they do suggest it but the ones how suggest it either have no clue, or they do not know what the yare doing.

This is why it's clear we are not going to see this change, and it is not going to happen. We should focus on how to get a better return when the time comes by doing more technical analysis out of this.

We shouldn't really be worried though, because those have good returns as well if we give it enough time. If we can't move any other way, it is not going to change, and we will lose a lot.

For me the Pope System manipulates the biggest in the crypto market and if you talk with trading in the crypto market I am not interested in what the Pope planned or what the Pope wants to buy.

In essence, I will not turn to Bitcoin, my understanding of the Pope is unable to manipulate Bitcoin, maybe they can do Altcoin and so on, For now I am still a real trade for Bitcoin, maybe I'm not interested in whale tricks, they can swallow anything other than Bitcoin.

I do not think tracking whales alone will be sufficient for anyone to trade cryptocurrencies profitably. Usually, trading needs lots of factors to be analysed but you are sounding like just tracking the wallets of whales alone enough for successful trading. You may be right for one or two instances and definitely not for every time.

In my opinion, whales movements are part of market manipulations. If you are gambling in the name of trading and trying to copy the manipulations of whales, you may succeed in one or two times out of 10+ attempts. This is how exactly gambling works and I do not think that's how trading should be done for consistent profit making.

Most of the whales on crypto have an inside trading knowledge due to the small community of crypto projects. Mostly these whales are part of the team or have a connection to the team that has knowledge on when they will release good news to hype the public.

Following what’s whale buying especially on early stage of the token market is a nice pattern to do when you are trading on spot because no one will invest huge amount of money on unknown without a solid info about this specific token.

We should be careful with this idea because many of these are just a trap. Many pump and dump groups, along with scam projects, have attempted to manipulate the market. That is why I don't buy hyped projects, as it is riskier than buying projects with low performance. We'd rather buy coins that have been known for their potential rather than just looking at their price. Deep market analysis is necessary, which is the only thing that could save us.

Like what happened to many hyped projects before, where many investors lost their money due to sudden drops. We must take that as a lesson to learn.

The key of this market is to predicting whales' moves before they happen, so you can benefit from the market's fluctuations. However, how can you do it in a consistent way? I see no other alternative besides guessing or having access to inside info. Guessing is too risky, and inside information is available only to a very select group of individuals, so for most of us it's not possible to spot what whales are going to buy.

If they are buying, it already means a red flag, because until you buy, it can be that you are a late investor, and late investors lose money due to the crashes which come on the sequence...

Nah, I'm not into this. Some for sure are already ahead of you, while you're spotting these whales, some could use this to dump on you. Like manipulation, whales are whales, especially since they are always ahead of you. If a lot of people know this, like making them profitable, for sure, whales already knew about this and won't let this happen. They can use this to take advantage, like instead of making these, they are already dumping on you.

Whales are not only rich, have abundant investment fund but they also have enough experience in this market. Together with enough patience, more than necessary, they can wait a very long time to test the market many times, until a time they see that weak hands are out, to actually start their bull run manipulationg game, or oppositely they can do many tests and if they see it's time to shake weak hands, they will not hesitate to do it hardly.

On chain parameters can be manipulated too but it certainly needs more time for bending on chain parameters. Whales as said can wait a long time to for perfect manipulation opportunities as they don't have need of earning money daily, weekly or monthly with their available wealth.

The trouble with whales is that they do not announce it, and most people are just trying to catch up and fail and that is why they make mistakes and lose money and all that. This is why I think it's quite important to make sure you know what you are doing and not making mistakes. Most people end up making mistakes and they are not dealing with much on the long term.

If you really want to get some good returns, then you should be avoiding most of these and try to get better returns for yourself. Obviously this isn't easy, and obviously this takes time, but no matter how much time it takes, you should be able to actually do some great jobs with it. If you can, then you are not to worry and you are going to get great returns.

I'm not a huge trader myself but it is something that interests me. I trade when I can and I also am very picky with trades. I'm successful with my strategy but I know that day trading isn't for me, so I buy when there are amazing news and I sell when I already managed to get a good profit from my investment, I'm not a hardcore trader but I keep some part of my coins in a cold wallet.

By the way, how safe is that strategy to use on-chain analytics platforms to track whales activities? Whales know that we do that, right? So what if they make a bait for us?

If people are actually doing this, then it seems naive to me to follow this so called whales do what they do, how much influence can whales on these platforms influence the market conditions, it's too shallow to me because lots of traders in the world are influencing the market, and a certain number of people on a platform that's not really popular called themselves as market influencers.

Nah, I won't get involve.

If an ordinary investor follows whales, it is definitely not reasonable. Because whale investors have the ability to make a big move in the market. If today's whale investors lose some money, they can also make a big profit on any trade, but if ordinary investors follow them, they will not get that opportunity. If they lose, they will not be able to arrange sufficient funds to recover it.

Investing by looking at the market trend can sometimes be risky because the trend can change at any time. Before investing, the investor must consider the individual and adopt a good strategy by following the general investors. If you follow the whales' strategy, there will be a big chance of losing.

There are many factors that influence the market, and even if we follow the whales, it doesn't mean our entry will be the same as theirs, and it might even be too late. Usually, we only see when the price is very high and then enter, and when that happens, the risk is high.

If we focus on that, we'll likely overlook things that are actually more important. In the market, there's not just one thing we need to pay attention to, but many. So, we shouldn't act carelessly because we're using money that must be managed well.

Whales in this case can be blackrock, microstrategy, or anything buying something in the market.
When ETH was $1500 whales are buying ETH, look at the price right now. Although influence might not be big, but they still can change around sentiment at some extent.

Like how Tom Lee is bullish with ETH while also owning biggest ETH fund. As a result people are becoming bullish as well.
Whales onchain activity can be a good clue and alpha honestly sometime.

Yeah, we can't just follow them and expect to make the same amount. It's true that our capital is smaller, and even returns won't matter. Because turning 1 billion into 1.1 billion is a huge deal, and they chase that, having that kind of capital makes it hard to invest into things, you can't invest like a smaller investor, so even a 10% return deal is huge.

But, if you have a thousand dollars and turn that into 1.1k dollars, that's nothing, it's just hundred bucks, you can ask a friend to spot you that much, it's literally that small. So believe me, following what they do, because we lack the capital, is not going to be good for us. Because the return ROI is different, smaller people need higher returns to mean something.

I can agree with you on this if whales are a group of companies buying heavily and not a mere richly individuals buying because there is a big difference in purchasing capacity and power in them, and I'm doubting the fact that these companies are reflected on those platforms OP listed. I was specifically talking about the whales that appear to be those platforms.

If you use tools like Telegram Bots or GMGN web, you can actually track purchases by whales or individuals identified as profiting significantly from degen play, and their wallet addresses will be marked with smart wallets. However, they won't be 100% profitable on every trade, so be cautious in case a whale or smart wallet makes a purchase. You could be following them, but when they sell, you've just making entry and finally you are failed to save your money while that coins getting dump because of whales and smart wallet leaving early.