The number of Bitcoin whales hit an all-time high during the latest bull run

[Charles-Tim]

On October 20, there were 2,178 Bitcoin addresses that held at least 1,000 BTC. By October 25, this number increased to 2,231. This indicates the number of Bitcoin (BTC) whales reaching a new all-time high recently.


https://studio.glassnode.com/metrics?a=BTC&m=addresses.Min1KCount&s=1562062216&u=1603670400&zoom=

Based on this data, we can surmise that the whales control at least 2.23 million Bitcoin — a significant figure equivalent to 12% of the current supply.


https://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-bitcoin-addresses.html

According to data from BitcoinCharts, these whale addresses actually control a much higher 7,902,469 BTC, or 42% of the total supply. Although we know the number of whale addresses, we do not know how many individuals or entities control them. Multiple addresses could be controlled by a single entity, or likewise a single address could be controlled by multiple parties with a multi-signature wallet.


https://studio.glassnode.com/metrics?a=BTC&category=Lifespan&m=supply.HodlWaves&s=1481224923&u=1603670400&zoom=

https://www.google.com/amp/s/cointelegraph.com/news/the-number-of-bitcoin-whales-hit-an-all-time-high-during-the-latest-bull-run/amp

[CarnagexD]

On October 20, there were 2,178 Bitcoin addresses that held at least 1,000 BTC. By October 25, this number increased to 2,231. This indicates the number of Bitcoin (BTC) whales reaching a new all-time high recently.


https://studio.glassnode.com/metrics?a=BTC&m=addresses.Min1KCount&s=1562062216&u=1603670400&zoom=

Based on this data, we can surmise that the whales control at least 2.23 million Bitcoin — a significant figure equivalent to 12% of the current supply.


https://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-bitcoin-addresses.html

According to data from BitcoinCharts, these whale addresses actually control a much higher 7,902,469 BTC, or 42% of the total supply. Although we know the number of whale addresses, we do not know how many individuals or entities control them. Multiple addresses could be controlled by a single entity, or likewise a single address could be controlled by multiple parties with a multi-signature wallet.


https://studio.glassnode.com/metrics?a=BTC&category=Lifespan&m=supply.HodlWaves&s=1481224923&u=1603670400&zoom=

https://www.google.com/amp/s/cointelegraph.com/news/the-number-of-bitcoin-whales-hit-an-all-time-high-during-the-latest-bull-run/amp

Not so sure if we have to be scared about this or not really. I mean 12% of a public commodity being held by as few as a thousand addresses can turn the tides against the small investors like us. Let's hope these overlords don't play with the people below them by dumping a huge sum of the coin, or gatekeep the small investors by pumping it too much that you can't even buy a considerable amount for yourself.

[coupable]

In fact, over 2000 addresses is a huge number. However if we can identify addresses belong to giant entities like exchanges and mixers, i think just few individuals hold big amounts of bitcoins. Fortunetly, it's just 12% from the total bitcoins and anybody can still buy and fill his wallet. At the opposite, it may come a day when all the bitcoin is held by few entities and become reserved to rich people/countries .

[DrG]

In fact, over 2000 addresses is a huge number. However if we can identify addresses belong to giant entities like exchanges and mixers, i think just few individuals hold big amounts of bitcoins. Fortunetly, it's just 12% from the total bitcoins and anybody can still buy and fill his wallet. At the opposite, it may come a day when all the bitcoin is held by few entities and become reserved to rich people/countries .

If it's only held by 1000 people worldwide does it have any real value? It would be like giving a Monet painting to a homeless man. He would be rich from asset but it's not able to b utilized unless he sells it. For BTC to keep its value it needs to be coveted by the population at large. 2 Billionaires trading it among themselves would have no real impact on the rest of the world.

[Sadlife]

Some whales bought it over the counter, and hodl it into hardware wallets, So we wouldn't actually know how many whales are currently holding Bitcoins. This chart or data, may not be entirely accurate. But all of them are coming out in the wild, with all the uncertainty happening with the financial system and massive quantitative easing. Of course some millionaire's will want to protect their wealths.

[btc_angela]

Some whales bought it over the counter, and hodl it into hardware wallets, So we wouldn't actually know how many whales are currently holding Bitcoins. This chart or data, may not be entirely accurate. But all of them are coming out in the wild, with all the uncertainty happening with the financial system and massive quantitative easing. Of course some millionaire's will want to protect their wealths.

Yeah, it might not be that accurate, but still this is a good baseline figure that maybe whales whether individual or it belong to a company, are reaching its peak and maybe preparing for the next anticipated bull run. So I'm expecting that it will still grow massive, whether coming from fresh new blood or old whales filling their bags even more.

[Philipma1957cellphone]

In fact, over 2000 addresses is a huge number. However if we can identify addresses belong to giant entities like exchanges and mixers, i think just few individuals hold big amounts of bitcoins. Fortunetly, it's just 12% from the total bitcoins and anybody can still buy and fill his wallet. At the opposite, it may come a day when all the bitcoin is held by few entities and become reserved to rich people/countries .

   wrong do the math. There are quite  few 10000 coin addresses and an address over  1000000. So 7 out of 18  or 34% is much more accurate then 12%.

[mk4]

At the opposite, it may come a day when all the bitcoin is held by few entities and become reserved to rich people/countries .

Surprise surprise, bitcoin can't(and isn't made to) solve economic equality in the first place, because no asset can. Ultimately it's mostly up to the people and their habits and decisions that's going to get them out of poverty, not necessarily bitcoin.

[Darker45]

What then could we deduce from these numbers? I mean, what are the possible implications of this? What does it possibly speak of Bitcoin's future adoption or price?

By the way, as per the article linked in the OP, there is also an increase in what is considered as hodling pattern. This is a bullish note. For the past 1 year at least, 62% of the supply has remained dormant. Furthermore, 1/3 of the supply has not moved in at least 3 years. This is worth noticing as well because this could mean an outlook by the majority of Bitcoin owners that the future is even brighter.

[erikoy]

Wow, sure whales could be earning huge with people buying more bitcoin and that money goes to them or to a single owner or entity holding that 40+% of total bitcoin supply. I guess they are eyeing again to sell more btc if bu run will going to happen. It seems that whales are really the one earning here and not the small time investors. Anyway, the good thing is that it can keep bitcoin alive and that for us to anticipate in this kind of whales activity.  Hopefully after market is crashing I will be able to collect more even just a smaller part of a single bitcoin.

[Poker Player]

Some whales bought it over the counter, and hodl it into hardware wallets, So we wouldn't actually know how many whales are currently holding Bitcoins. This chart or data, may not be entirely accurate. But all of them are coming out in the wild, with all the uncertainty happening with the financial system and massive quantitative easing. Of course some millionaire's will want to protect their wealths.

I was thinking about that. If someone is using a hardware wallet and getting bitcoin from different addresses, wouldn't it appear as would not appear in that statistic as having a lower amount, but divided into different addresses?

I mean, someone buys 100 bitcoin and gets them into a hard wallet address. Then he creates another addres and buys 200. He does the same and buys 150 and so on. He would have over 1000 bitcoin but it wouldn't appear in that list as a whale. Is this correct?

[pooya87]

At the opposite, it may come a day when all the bitcoin is held by few entities and become reserved to rich people/countries .

Surprise surprise, bitcoin can't(and isn't made to) solve economic equality in the first place, because no asset can. Ultimately it's mostly up to the people and their habits and decisions that's going to get them out of poverty, not necessarily bitcoin.

that is very true but at the same time nobody was preventing anybody from owning bitcoin when it was worth nothing and could be mined 50 at a time by just running your PC and using your CPU. again nobody was preventing them from buying it when it was worth practically nothing and you could buy lots of it with something like 10 bucks.

this means anyone who moans about others having more than them have noone to blame but themselves.

[franky1]

not whales.. exchanges

[franky1]

At the opposite, it may come a day when all the bitcoin is held by few entities and become reserved to rich people/countries .

Surprise surprise, bitcoin can't(and isn't made to) solve economic equality in the first place, because no asset can. Ultimately it's mostly up to the people and their habits and decisions that's going to get them out of poverty, not necessarily bitcoin.

that is very true but at the same time nobody was preventing anybody from owning bitcoin when it was worth nothing and could be mined 50 at a time by just running your PC and using your CPU. again nobody was preventing them from buying it when it was worth practically nothing and you could buy lots of it with something like 10 bucks.

i bought in when it was $6 each and i held onto my hoard privately. so i se your point about that..
however..
the community has changed. the code has changed and now everything is now pushing people to hoard in custodial multisigs/LN vaults/exchange private keys

making it harder for individuals to make transactions personally but easier to lock funds up into corporate services for easy use via other networks/datastructures has become the new game of bitcoin. so its not the peoples fault if the code has made things more expensive to do independantly, by raising fee's and promoting corporates services to take the edge off the fee's.

the new fee structures implemented after 2013 and again in 2017 has ruled out utility of daily spending for people in developing countries. thus bitcoin lost its slogan of 'for the unbanked' with some countries minimum wage translating to $2 a day. and just 1tx fee being $2. some people just wont want to use a system that costs them a days wage just to make a transaction

so its not all down to peoples choice. its actually code. and code can be changed.. but developer politics is to blame for not making bitcoin more utility friendly.. not average joe people. because average joe cant convince devs to make things better. its been tried by thousands of people. but devs ignore community desires

[Kakmakr]

Bitcoin whales or centralized services storing their coins in cold storage? (We know some wallet providers and exchanges and casinos have cold wallets to protect their coins from hacks)

All of these addresses with 1000+ coins are not owned by individuals, so let's calm down and not be worried that whales are dominating the ownership of Bitcoins.  

Just another FUD article by the media that does not represent the whole picture to the public.... and people believe and spread this bullshit.  

[davis196]

This seems like a normal process to me.Inequality is an important part of capitalism.
More and more Bitcoin will be concentrated in the hands of less and less people and companies.
The process can be seen in every capitalist society.More and more capital is concentrated in less and less people.The rich will become richer...
The real question is,will this concentration of money,resources and power ruin the Bitcoin blockchain?
If Bitcoin becomes a "currency of the rich and privileged",the middle class and the working class people might lose trust in the future of BTC.Nobody knows what will happen...

[xSkylarx]

The real question is,will this concentration of money,resources and power ruin the Bitcoin blockchain?
If Bitcoin becomes a "currency of the rich and privileged",the middle class and the working class people might lose trust in the future of BTC.Nobody knows what will happen...

It's also an opportunity for the middle class and below that to earn during bull run. Only people that will be caught in the hype or buy in FOMO stage will lose.
I only have few amounts of bitcoin and I've already experienced being hyped but I didn't lose trust on bitcoin. It's my fault in the first place why it happened and it served a big lesson to me.
Now I know what to do and I'm just waiting for next bull run to earn some good amount of money that will open me some opportunity to explore new things I want to explore before like opening my own business.

[asriloni]

not whales.. exchanges

not exchanges but the whales

https://cointelegraph.com/news/abra-ceo-s-portfolio-is-50-bitcoin-as-cash-is-becoming-worthless

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/08/business/square-bitcoin-crypto-investment/index.html

Fidelity was also suggesting its users to hodl bitcoin at least 5% from their portfolios. more whales are coming to the bitcoin.

The big names who hated bitcoin have started to change their mind about bitcoin. It looks like it's possible for bitcoin to be dominated by the whales from the wallstreet. I remember paul tudor was also investing in bitcoin too.

[daarul50]

not whales.. exchanges

not exchanges but the whales

https://cointelegraph.com/news/abra-ceo-s-portfolio-is-50-bitcoin-as-cash-is-becoming-worthless

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/08/business/square-bitcoin-crypto-investment/index.html

Fidelity was also suggesting its users to hodl bitcoin at least 5% from their portfolios. more whales are coming to the bitcoin.

The big names who hated bitcoin have started to change their mind about bitcoin. It looks like it's possible for bitcoin to be dominated by the whales from the wallstreet. I remember paul tudor was also investing in bitcoin too.

Yes we can all see it , the people who talk bullshit about bitcoin now looks like have a 180°  opinions , paypal for example , they are ranting about bitcoin at least for the past 5 years and look where they are now.
Will be more interesting if trump or biden speak about bitcoin in their campaign , they are more than big names , they could be a game changer.

[franky1]

not whales.. exchanges

not exchanges but the whales

actually it is exchanges. you can sot it by seeing the richlist and were the funds are.
when exchanges have say 200k coins in one multisig. but then need to get a 'warm wallet' the take out say 20k and make several warm wallets.
later when the minnows(users) withdraw you see the 1-2k warm wallets then split down again into 100-500coin amounts

the wallets with 1k+ are still exchange wallets.

many large hoarders including myself would never dare throw all our hoard into a single address. just incase that privkey is lost/stolen its better and smarter to break it down into smaller amounts amungst several addresses where the privkeys are secured in separate locations.

anyway.. back to the point
having checked most of the main movers of hoards in the last week. it has been exchanges. thy have a certain pattern thats been known for years.