Glassnode says whales offload a massive amount of BTC

Glassnode, a crypto market data aggregator, announced that Bitcoin whales offload a massive amount of BTC throughout February.

Whales are a group of people working together to hold a considerable share of a single coin. These are usually large players such as Hedge Funds and Bitcoin Investment Funds. They can use their power to manage the price of a coin to the coveted price.

For example, during a massive decline in a coin price, people will sometimes blame it on whales dumping on the market. Whales move can cause waves, and if you are careful enough, you can earn some profit. However, a whale can crush you, so you have to be very careful.

Glassnode defines any address that holds between 1,000 – 10,000 BTC as a whale, while humpback whales hold over 10,000 BTC. Significantly, according to the report, the number of whales grew by around 4% in the year to February 5, 2021.

One whale managed to cash out $156 million before the fall started

Whales and humpbacks’ buying spree sharply boosted in January as they gained 80,000 BTC, worth $3.84 billion at today’s prices.

However, since February, whales and humpbacks seem to have taken heavy profits, offloading 140,000 BTC ($6.72 billion) since the beginning of the month.

Furthermore, the data reveals an inverse relationship among the trading activities of whales to smaller but still wealthy investors. Glassnode announced that dolphins and sharks, wallets that hold 100 – 1,000 BTC, dropped 95,000 BTC worth $4.56 billion in January. However, it became bullish in February, accumulating 117,000 Bitcoin ($5.61 billion) since the beginning of the month.

The 20% BTC price drop this week sparked a lot of action for the whales and was front-run by one wise whale who managed to cash out $156 million before the fall started on February 23.

Concerns of a more down-trend may not happen as new research from trading platform CrossTower claims that institutional buying will hold BTC over $50,000 in the long term.