How many anonymous whales are there?

[Anonohmon]

Like people who own tons of Bitcoin or crypto but bought them without KYC? Either before KYC was a thing, or bought them through methods that did not involve KYC?




And how many people do you think hold a lot of wealth, who did buy with KYC, but anonymized them for privacy. Not for committing crime, but just mixed or XMR converted their btc and back to get anonymous bitcoin and are whales. Moving markets but no one, not even the US government, knows who they are?

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[hatshepsut93]

Well, the whole point of privacy is that such data is hard or impossible to obtain. Adresses that hold a lot of coins could belong to organizations and not a single owner. Individual whales could have dozens of addresses with moderate amounts of coins, instead of putting all eggs in one basket. There are attempts to count the Bitcoin whales, but I seriously question their accuracy.

So, this is a question that no one can give a good answer.

[batang_bitcoin]

You'll never know any metrics or data about them since you're talking about privacy and anonymity.

And how many people do you think hold a lot of wealth, who did buy with KYC, but anonymized them for privacy. Not for committing crime, but just mixed or XMR converted their btc and back to get anonymous bitcoin and are whales. Moving markets but no one, not even the US government, knows who they are?

No one will know who they are, they're anonymous for a reason and that's why for these questions that you've brought up. Maybe someone can bring up a data and statistics on it but it will be questioned for accuracy.

[LFC_Bitcoin]

Most whales are anonymous, only attention seeking morons announce publicly how many bitcoin they have. I know people like Saylor are ‘out’ so to speak but I’m not talking about them. Any whale is not a public figure will remain anonymous. There are too many security risks with publicly announcing how filthy rich you are.

Smart people say gery little when it’s not required.

[mk4]

If you want a very rough estimation, check: https://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-bitcoin-addresses.html

Obviously some of the addresses that hold a lot of bitcoin are exchanges, and the fact that people can hold multiple bitcoin on multiple addresses, would end you up with an inaccurate idea, but at least you have a rough idea.

[Dave1]

We will likely not getting the figures, maybe there could be rough estimates, but we will never know.

And maybe some of them haven't touch their BTC for many years, just sitting on their wallet, and when they are going to move it, they could used mixers to hide and keep their identity private.

And as far as XMR goes, as early as 2020, IRS has offered $625k to anyone who can crack XMR's and other privacy centric crypto.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/the-irs-offers-a-625-000-bounty-to-anyone-who-can-break-monero-and-lightning

[GreatArkansas]

That's why we called them "anonymous" because we can't identify them. It's really difficult, there are some whales who are using multiple wallets without trace or connection to different wallets but only 1 owner. This is power of decentralization, it's just amazing because you can do it without someone knowing or someone can control your funds.

[KennyR]

The term anonymous itself represents that the whales can't be traced. If the whale formula is based on the volume of holding, we can count the number of wallets holding the specific volume of bitcoin. With that calculation it is possible to have the number of Whale wallets and that doesn't indicate the number of Whale holders, because a single Whale holder can have multiple wallets.

[Darker45]

Well, we can only make a rough guess out of Bitcoin addresses and how much Bitcoin is in there, but it can never be accurate. After all, we cannot equate addresses with individual owners. It is very possible that addresses that have so much Bitcoin belong to crypto companies and not to individual whales.

We also can't accurately tell whether certain whales bought their Bitcoin with or without KYC. It is very possible that whales who have so much Bitcoin made the purchase through OTC or through brokers.

[Strongkored]

Even though they buy with KYC only the exchange knows who/whale bought/owns the BTC, it's very likely that the exchange won't open this data and is quite doubtful that whales will buy it through the exchange because they could buy through other methods.
Addresses detected as having a lot of BTC are mostly exchange addresses, so it is very difficult or impossible to reveal how many whales have BTC or how much they have because their decision to own btc is anonymity.

[LogitechMouse]

Your question is contradicting.
You are asking the number of whales out there but the fact that you added the word "anonymous" contradicts your question. That's why there is the word anonymous because you don't know who they are and that goes to the whales and in fact, nobody can give you an exact number here.

I don't know exact but "probably" those whales are those who are owning an exchanges, those institutions who are involved in cryptocurrencies and there are some rich people out there who are involved into crypto as well but they are silent.

[bluebit25]

It seems like more and more people are holding more crypto, but being honest with individuals or organizations that want to remain anonymous on this matter would also be a difficult thing to do. As I know, even hackers, underground government organizations, etc., are always curious about crypto assets. We all suspect they hold a lot but can't know exactly, so the answer to OP's problem is hard to describe.

[Anonohmon]

Most whales are anonymous, only attention seeking morons announce publicly how many bitcoin they have. I know people like Saylor are ‘out’ so to speak but I’m not talking about them. Any whale is not a public figure will remain anonymous. There are too many security risks with publicly announcing how filthy rich you are.

Smart people say gery little when it’s not required.

And keeping in mind when I say anonymous. I dont mean only to the public, rather, also to the government.

[Anonohmon]

Even though they buy with KYC only the exchange knows who/whale bought/owns the BTC, it's very likely that the exchange won't open this data and is quite doubtful that whales will buy it through the exchange because they could buy through other methods.
Addresses detected as having a lot of BTC are mostly exchange addresses, so it is very difficult or impossible to reveal how many whales have BTC or how much they have because their decision to own btc is anonymity.

Unless they then mix those coins, or use XMR to anonymize them, the government would still know where that money is going correct?

[smartaction]

All whale investors always want to use crypto with their privacy coz of many Government issues and restrictions. But anonymity is not always possible. Because most centralized exchangers make KYC mandatory for exchanging large amount. but if someone use cex then it is possible to Exchange and hold a largest amount anonymously. that’s why every whale investors always like CEX.

[Furious 7]

When it comes to being anonymous there, it is quite clear that it is not possible to know who they are and where they came from, because the word Anonymous itself has explained that this cannot be known and maybe only a few people are speculating there.
I think something like this is definitely a good move on their part because there's no way they would admit that they're a big-buying whale, unless what they really want is name and fame here.

[pooya87]

Your topic title is its own answer!
If they are anonymous then you can't count them, even looking at addresses with certain balance is not the answer because an address with a large balance could belong to a service not an individual.
And if you could count individuals with certain amount of coins (like whales) then they would not be anonymous anymore.

[hZti]

As it was said there is no way to know that, but it is in the nature of Bitcoin that there are a lot of this whales. The reason is simple, in the beginning of Bitcoin there were only a few people involved even if at the same time there was a large supply of Bitcoin. Those people never did KYC but also not of them trade actively.

[Eternad]

You can determine this by determining the number of whale holders before Exchange KYC is mandatory because those whales that only exist after the exchange KYC policy exist probably undergo on KYC for there holdings because they need to have a full report for there crypto assets due to the tax. There’s no tax filing requirements before for all crypto holdings so this is a good basis to get a number approximate whales that didn’t undergo KYC.

[Hypnosis00]

That perhaps they are anonymous, nobody knows them even if it was your friend, he won't tell you either of how much he holds.
And they are afraid to make it in public knowing that the government will after them for sake of taxes and oblige them to do it. They won't do any KYC, keeping their crypto assets remains anonymous and that is actually highly recommended just also to avoid any hacking interest.

I also do the same and keeping quiet seems to be normal in the crypto market.