A growing number of wealthy investors in recent times have increased their transactional volume at the Bitcoin market.

This is, however, triggered by the recent rush of notable institutional brands and investors rushing to have a stake in this digital asset.

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• Data obtained from Bitcoin Block Bot, a crypto analytic tracker, revealed that three unknown entities moved Bitcoins estimated to be worth about $400 million, in three separate transactions, some hours ago.

The 3 transactions are captured in the tweets below:

Whale alert! 🐋 Someone moved 5,192 BTC ($101M) in block 659,830 https://t.co/IznoUAKgRD

— Bitcoin Block Bot (@BtcBlockBot) December 3, 2020

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Whale alert! 🐋 Someone moved 8,643 BTC ($167M) in block 659,790 https://t.co/O4OcaRjK22

— Bitcoin Block Bot (@BtcBlockBot) December 3, 2020

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Whale alert! 🐋 Someone moved 6,476 BTC ($125M) in block 659,783 https://t.co/RWz99cFEn4

— Bitcoin Block Bot (@BtcBlockBot) December 3, 2020

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• At the time of writing this publication, the flagship crypto traded at $19,285.38 with a daily trading volume of $32 billion.
• Bitcoin is up 1.41% in the last 24 hours.
• It is ranked the most valuable crypto by market value, with a valuation of $358 Billion.
• It has a circulating supply of 18,561,562 BTC coins and a maximum supply of 21,000,000 BTC coins.

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Recent data seen from Glassnode, reveals a contraction of supply action at the bitcoin market is pointing towards a bullish bias, taking to account Bitcoin Active Supply 5y-7y (1d MA) just reached a 2-year low of 860,282.802 BTC.

• The previous 2-year low of 860,344.389 BTC was observed on 03 December 2020.
• Metric Description: The amount of circulating supply last moved between 5 years and 7 years ago.

Explore Data on the Nairametrics Research Website

📉 #Bitcoin $BTC Active Supply 5y-7y (1d MA) just reached a 2-year low of 860,282.802 BTC

Previous 2-year low of 860,344.389 BTC was observed on 03 December 2020

View metric:https://t.co/1iBTMZ79br pic.twitter.com/RbFkmLMgTV

— glassnode alerts (@glassnodealerts) December 4, 2020

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What to expect

Nairametrics anticipates increased buying pressures by such large entities are partly responsible for the crypto recent highs. While, it is difficult to predict market movements, such investors have shown historically, price patterns often determines the BTC trend.

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The third most valuable crypto by market value, XRP has become the favourite of institutional investors lately, hinting that there may be more than meets the eyes.

Data, however, retrieved from Whale Alert revealed a large entity moved 119,999,980 XRP (75,551,782 USD) from an unknown wallet to Coinbase, a few hours ago.

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🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 119,999,980 #XRP (75,551,782 USD) transferred from unknown wallet to #Coinbase

Tx: https://t.co/jLvBuVXElJ

— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) December 3, 2020

• Wealthy crypto investors seem to be upping their game last quarter of, 2020, as regards moving XRP – the third most valuable crypto by market value, as lately seen by Nairametrics.
• Many crypto experts anticipate the movements of such crypto are coming from major stakeholders of Ripple, on the bias some of these wallets contain a significant amount of XRP.

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At the time of writing, XRP was trading at $0.628191 with a daily volume of $11 billion. XRP is up 1.16% in the last 24 hours, with a market capitalization of $28.5 billion. It has a circulating supply of 45,334,295,892 XRP coins and a maximum supply of 100,000,000,000 XRP coins.

What you should know: Ripple is a privately-held fintech company that provides a global payment solution via its patented payment network called Ripple Network (also known as RippleNet).

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XRP still remains the only crypto gaining traction among global banks as Japan-based Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, with assets of more than USD 2.8 trillion, announced in November 2018 that, in cooperation with Ripple, it would provide an international money transfer service on the payment corridor from Japan to Brazil

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Why are whales buying?

Economic historian, Barry Eichengreen, gave a detailed analysis of why cryptos should not just be considered for speculative reasons, as leading crypto assets have shown characteristics of being tangible assets.

“I don’t think that thinking about crypto as speculative investments, is really a long-term viable business model. Speculative investments have come and gone throughout history. Tulips came as a speculative investment and they went. Digital assets that provide actual tangible services like cross-border payments are the ones that are likely to have legs,” Eichengreen said.

READ: Ripple suffers highest day percentage loss since September 3

Barry went on to explain why crypto has become the new digital gold.

He said, “Gold doesn’t really have any intrinsic value. People [believe] it will hold its value because other people value it. There is, from that point-of-view, a parallel with cryptocurrencies. People pay actual U.S. dollars for it because they think other people will value it and pay actual U.S. dollars for it.”

READ: Whales are buying XRP, Ripple becomes world’s 3rd most valuable crypto

Explore Research Grade Data on the Nairametrics Research Website

European Central Bank (ECB) leader, Christine Lagarde, is leading the campaign for a digital euro but doesn’t see the flagship crypto, Bitcoin, and other cryptos as ideal for payment.

The ECB leader acknowledged the gains of having blockchain technology in play, but was critical about Bitcoin and other cryptos, particularly on the bias that it’s too volatile to be used in making payments.

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“The main risk lies in relying purely on technology and the flawed concept of there being no identifiable issuer or claim. This also means that users cannot rely on crypto-assets maintaining a stable value: they are highly volatile, illiquid, speculative, and so do not fulfill all the functions of money,” Lagarde said.

In this COVID-19 era, Lagarde has declared her support for the digitalization of the Euro, elaborating deeper on what a digital euro could do, such as providing its citizens unrestricted access to money that is backed by a central bank, and allowing the Euro geopolitical area to maintain its monetary status quo.

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“It could be important in a range of future scenarios, from a decline in the use of cash to pre-empting the uptake of foreign digital currencies in the euro area. Issuing a digital euro might become necessary to ensure both continued access to central bank money and monetary sovereignty.

“A properly designed digital euro would create synergies with the payments industry and enable the private sector to build new businesses based on digital euro-related services,” Lagarde added.

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What you should know

• Some weeks back, Christine Lagarde gave a strong indication that the ECB could create its cryptocurrency within a few years, in what would be a systematical change to the euro zone’s financial system.
• Lagarde hinted that it could take two to four years before the project begins, as it would address concerns over privacy, money laundering, and the technology involved.

READ: U.S investment giant, with $295 billion assets plans to buy Bitcoin