The record run of Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC) towards $106,000 has been significantly boosted by an increase in whale investor holdings, on-chain data revealed on Sunday, although retailers continued to control the majority of supply.
What happened
Since the bullish trend began on October 10, there has been a net increase of 1,582 more wallets holding at least 100 bitcoins, the Blockchain analytics firm reported. Santiment in X.
The jump, from 16,072 to 17,644, in nine weeks, reflected a gain of almost 10%. During the same period, Bitcoin appreciated by 77%.
🥳 Bitcoin has climbed to $106.5K for the first time in its 16+ year history. Since the bull rally began back on October 10th, there has been a net increase of 1,582 more wallets that hold at least 100 BTC, a jump of +9.9% more wallets in the relatively short period of time! pic.twitter.com/261LfRd776
— Santiment (@santimentfeed) December 16, 2024
Additional data from IntoTheBlock indicates that large holders own around 12% of the Bitcoin supply. The term “large holders” refers to those addresses that own more than 1% of the supply, also called whales, and those that own between 0.1% and 1% of the supply.
Collectively, all the whales together represented only 1.25% of the total supply. On the other hand, retail investors owned 88%.
| Cluster | Holding threshold per investor | Percentage of total Bitcoin supply |
| Whales | More than 1% BTC | 1.25% |
| Investors | Between 0.1%-1% BTC | 10.42% |
| Retailers | Less than 0.1% BTC | 88.33% |
On the contrary, Ethereum (CRYPTO:ETH) and Dogecoin (CRYPTO:DOGE) had a much larger share of whales, 43.50%, and 41.74%, respectively.
Why is it important
Generally, a high concentration of supply points to low decentralization, since a small number of wealthy investors holding a disproportionate share of the supply could lead to market manipulation.
If these players own a large enough share, they could act maliciously at the expense of retailers, potentially selling off and causing the price of an asset to plummet.
However, with Bitcoin whale dominance still at very low levels, this possibility seemed quite unlikely.
In the last month, the leading digital asset has experienced a record-breaking run, surpassing $100,000 to reach unprecedented levels.
Bitcoin price movement
At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading at $104,990.72, up 2.70% over the past 24 hours, according to data from Benzinga Pro.
Photo courtesy of Shutterstock
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