Who the whales of Bitcoin are and how much they weigh in the market

[Nathrixxx]

We have to get use to some terms in Bitcoin world, and have a clear knowledge of the operational mode, who and what constitutes it's ecosystem, here I've brought in a topic on "Bitcoin whales" what and who they are.

The term Bitcoin whales refers to the large holders of BTC. They are people, institutions, or platforms with a tremendous amount of money in their wallets in the form of cryptocurrency.

How many bitcoin whales exist, and how many BTCs they have
It is possible to quantify the whales of BTC; to do so, just consult Bitinfocharts.

The chart tells us that:
The top 100 wealthy hold 15.02% of the total bitcoin supply, or 2.8 million BTC for $133 billion;
The top 10 addresses have 6.04% of the wealth,
The top 100 addresses have 15.02% of the wealth;
There are over 2 million addresses that have at least $10,000 in bitcoin.

Who are the whales
Although bitcoin provides pseudo-anonymity, it is possible to trace the identity of some of these whales.

1. Exchanges
Again, Bitinfocharts comes to our rescue, showing us that some of the largest BTC addresses holders are the exchanges. Specifically, the richest is the Binance cold wallet, with over 288,000 BTC (equal to $13 billion). It is followed at a distance by the Bitfinex cold wallet, where more than 178,000 BTC are contained. In fifth and sixth place are two cold wallets belonging to OkEX, with over 80,000 BTC each. Also in the top 10 (9th place) is Huobi’s cold wallet with 73,000 BTC.

2. Individuals
Then there are a few individuals who have accumulated an enormous amount of BTC to boast the definition of “whales.”

The first whale in Bitcoin history is Satoshi Nakamoto. He is said to have mined 1 million BTC in the cryptocurrency’s early days. But these BTCs are reportedly stationary in several wallets, suggesting that the mysterious bitcoin creator is dead. It happens that some of these dormant wallets wake up, but there are not enough clues to prove that it is really Satoshi making the moves ten years after his last public appearance.

The whales also include the Winklevoss twins. They owe their fortune to a maxi compensation obtained by Mark Zuckerberg at the time of the lawsuit that saw them opposed to the creation of Facebook. They invested part of that fortune in BTC. It was 2013. They made the right choice. Today, the value of those cryptocurrencies bought in unsuspected times would make the CEO of Facebook pale, and he is certainly not doing badly.

Investopedia also counts Tim Draper and Barry Silbert among the whales.
Tim Draper is considered one of the first “institutional” investors in Bitcoin. He bought 42,000 BTC that he lost with the hack of MT. Gox hack. Then he purchased 30,000 BTC in a judicial auction related to the failure of the first major cryptocurrency exchange.
Today he is convinced that BTC can be worth $250,000 by early 2023. And this justifies his maxi investment.

Berry Silbert is the founder of Digital Currency Group and a member of Grayscale and Coindesk. He has obviously made a business out of cryptocurrencies. Like Tim Draper, he bought 48,000 BTC at the Mt. Gox auction.

3. Institutions
Among the institutions, we can mention one above all: Microstrategy. It made its first Bitcoin purchase in August 2020. Today it has more than 105,000 bitcoins in its portfolio, while its subsidiary MacroStrategy LCC, in turn, has 92,000 BTC. Michael Saylor’s idea so far has been a winner: make bitcoin the company’s primary reserve.

Whales and the market
But what happens when whales break into the market with their full weight? Technically, whales can manipulate the market. If a whale decides to make large bitcoin purchases, it can drag the market upward, causing FOMO to increase.
Conversely, if it decides to convert its BTC to cash, it can place large sell orders and increase the pressure. That triggers a chain of sales that drives the price of bitcoin down.

Ultimately, their role is by no means marginal. Especially with the continued entry of institutional investors, it is likely that the whales will play a significant role, even acting as “sharks,” taking advantage of the declines to make further purchases and increase their wealth.

Source:
https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2021/08/21/whales-of-bitcoin-market/?utm_source=thecryptoapp

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[BIT-BENDER]

'whale' as an animal, Is a largest animal in existence, even as when I was a  -Newbie- when I had bitcoin whales I didn't need a research to know this are Bitcoin-ers with much Bitcoin in their keep, those on the list aren't the only Bitcoin whales, some whales are annoymous.
Crypto-currency has terminologies but not a dictionary, but some of those terms are already words some one might be conversant with.

For -Newbies- and those who aren't conversant with some terminologies
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=126798.0

[odolvlobo]

The term Bitcoin whales refers to the large holders of BTC. They are people, institutions, or platforms with a tremendous amount of money in their wallets in the form of cryptocurrency.

That is the only worthwhile statement in the whole article. The rest is crap.

How many bitcoin whales exist, and how many BTCs they have
It is possible to quantify the whales of BTC; to do so, just consult Bitinfocharts.

The chart tells us that:
The top 100 wealthy hold 15.02% of the total bitcoin supply, or 2.8 million BTC for $133 billion;
The top 10 addresses have 6.04% of the wealth,
The top 100 addresses have 15.02% of the wealth;
There are over 2 million addresses that have at least $10,000 in bitcoin.

Addresses are not the same as people. You can't look at addresses to determine how many "whales" there are.

[cryptoaddictchie]

How many bitcoin whales exist, and how many BTCs they have
It is possible to quantify the whales of BTC; to do so, just consult Bitinfocharts.

Yes its true our basis of the whales could be the addresses holding it but those are sometime not own by someone alone like an exchange or institutions.

But I commend your details for compiling. So Im thinking if the top 1 holder still dormant in the chain or someone already been known as top holder of btc aside from satoshi. Of course this is confidential.

[dansus021]

maybe this list can help  

but like the other says one address hodling so much bitcoin is not all is whale sometimes is exchange hot wallet but still we dont know how much whale is existed   and maybe some of the whale dont point all of bictoin in single adress to stay low profile

and how much weigh is we dont know yet but for sure you can se public companies with their hodling here https://www.coingecko.com/en/public-companies-bitcoin

[pooya87]

The article is pure nonsense. For starters a lot of the addresses in the "rich list" is big services that don't own the bitcoins they are holding, they are just custodians who are protecting these funds on behalf of their customers (like an exchange having a large sum of bitcoins coming from thousands of traders). That doesn't make them "whales".
The term "whale" in the market is also mainly someone who has enough funds to affect the market, they don't have to have bitcoin but having fiat works too. And in other markets, the amount is relative. For example in a shitcoin having only 0.01 bitcoin could make you a whale.

The problem with this way of thinking (find and follow the whales) is that it is taken advantage of by those who don't even have enough bitcoin to be a little fish by fooling newbies into panic selling. Take a look at the scam service known as whalealert.

[Lily Garver]

The term Bitcoin whales refers to the large holders of BTC. They are people, institutions, or platforms with a tremendous amount of money in their wallets in the form of cryptocurrency.

That is the only worthwhile statement in the whole article. The rest is crap.

How many bitcoin whales exist, and how many BTCs they have
It is possible to quantify the whales of BTC; to do so, just consult Bitinfocharts.

The chart tells us that:
The top 100 wealthy hold 15.02% of the total bitcoin supply, or 2.8 million BTC for $133 billion;
The top 10 addresses have 6.04% of the wealth,
The top 100 addresses have 15.02% of the wealth;
There are over 2 million addresses that have at least $10,000 in bitcoin.

Addresses are not the same as people. You can't look at addresses to determine how many "whales" there are.

:DIt is true.
In such a huge market, the real giant whale trading team is very meticulous and rigorous. They will use the address very carefully，Sometimes you think you have found the address of the giant whale, maybe someone else let you find it on purpose.
Because there are too many ways to manipulate the market, there is no real professional analysis, and the data is unreliable.

[20kevin20]

Rich list means nothing. You could have an exchange holding 1 million BTC in a cold wallet and it could be either held in a single address which makes it obvious on a block explorer/the rich list or they could split it in as many addresses as they want. Splitting them into this many addys makes the whale quite "invisible" in the rich list, so again... that list is useless practically.

Also, I've had probably thousands of BTC addresses myself so linking that number to the number of Bitcoin users is again wrong. There could be way few people in the crypto space than we imagine, and the no of active addresses doesn't help us count them.

[tranthidung]

Depends on your definition for Bitcoin whales, you can get estimated whales from

• https://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-bitcoin-addresses.html
• https://www.lookintobitcoin.com/charts/wallets-greater-than-1000-btc/
• No, Bitcoin Ownership is not Highly Concentrated – But Whales are Accumulating (latest report from Glassnode). Whales (1k - 5k BTC) and Humpbacks (5k+ BTC) are accumulating more Bitcoin

Why I said it is just estimated whales?

• Because you it is just address that does not represent account or entity.

• Not all Bitcoin addresses should be treated equal. For instance, an exchange address holding the funds from millions of users needs to be distinguished from an individual's self-custody address.
• A Bitcoin address is not an "account". One user can control multiple addresses, and one address can hold the funds from multiple users.

[Lucius]

Tim Draper is considered one of the first “institutional” investors in Bitcoin. He bought 42,000 BTC that he lost with the hack of MT. Gox hack. Then he purchased 30,000 BTC in a judicial auction related to the failure of the first major cryptocurrency exchange.
Today he is convinced that BTC can be worth $250,000 by early 2023. And this justifies his maxi investment.

If memory serves me well, I think someone warned me (maybe @pooya87) that Tim Draper had invested the same BTC in some project, because at the time their value was about $18 million, which is incomparable to what they are worth today. So while I have no doubt he has a certain amount of BTC today, I don’t think it’s even close to what he had before - and besides, he has publicly admitted to investing his money in dozens of other cryptocurrencies.

Tim Draper is just one of those we call permabulls, and a man who very passionately supports Bitcoin, but I don’t think he should be categorized as a crypto whale.