The number of BTC whales with 1,000 Bitcoins or more in their wallets has surged to 1,882 from around 1,650 in January. This is the highest number in about three years.
According to a report by Glassnode, the number of BTC traders, investors with huge stacks of bitcoin is reaching levels last seen in September 2017, when the price of the flagship cryptocurrency rose towards $20,000, its all-time high.
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Why you should know BTC whales:
In the Bitcoin world, investors or traders who own a large number of Bitcoins are typically called Bitcoin whales. This means a Bitcoin whale would be an individual or business entity (with a single Bitcoin address) owning around 1000 Bitcoins or more.
As BTC whales accumulate BTCs, Bitcoins circulating supply reduces, and this can weaken any bearish trend BTC finds itself in. Meaning that over time, it’s possible that as Bitcoin approaches its fixed supply of 21 million, the price of BTC will go up, with BTC’s present demand factored in.
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“The price of BTC is now more than 20x higher than it was when we first saw this many whales, implying that more wealth is being held by whales,” Glassnode noted.
“However, the average balance held by each whale has decreased during this period, such that whales actually hold less BTC now than in 2016, and less wealth (in USD terms) than in 2017,” it added.
At the time this report was drafted, Bitcoin was still trading around the $9500 support levels, as investors have kept buying BTC at its support levels in the past two weeks.