Bitcoin Whale Is Earning Profits, Converting $1.2 Billion To Cash In Two Weeks: Analyst

Long-term Bitcoin whales are now cashing out their BTC, realizing $1.2 billion in profits over the past two weeks, according to CryptoQuant.

According to on-chain data provided by the company, “old whales” saw an explosion in their realized profits in USD in June. This means that they started selling their coins at a much higher price than when they first received them on-chain.

“In U.S. dollar terms, these gains are unprecedented,” said Julio Moreno, head of research at CryptoQuant. decryption. He said the only similar time was in April 2022, when Bitcoin was trading at $40,000 and the old whale made a profit of $683 million in one day. In Bitcoin terms, the realized profit at that time was 17,000 BTC, which was higher than this month’s profit of 14,000 BTC.

A Bitcoin whale is an investor who has held at least 1,000 Bitcoin (worth $65 million at current prices) for several years. These are often business or institutional owners rather than individuals.

CryptoQuant CEO Joo Ki-young argued that most of these sales were likely made through brokers, meaning sell-side liquidity has not yet reached the market. He warned on Tuesday that “brokers could influence the market by depositing BTC on exchanges.”

The selloff in whale holdings has exacerbated the cryptocurrency market’s bearish momentum in recent weeks, sending Bitcoin down 6.6% over the past week. This adds to the $300 million outflow from Bitcoin ETFs over the past two days and an environment where Bitcoin mining companies are selling their coins to survive.

Of course, CryptoQuant’s old whale dashboard doesn’t tell the whole story. Looking at all the Bitcoin whales, this group continues to accumulate coins at a slower pace than it did in March of this year. Likewise, stablecoins are still growing in market capitalization, but at a slower pace.

Moreno also noted that there may be some overlap between “old whales” taking profits and Bitcoin ETF outflows. From an on-chain analytics perspective, a “long-term holder” is someone who has held their coins for more than 155 days. This is slightly longer than the period the ETF is currently active.

“However, since this sell-off involves long-term whales, it will only involve a very small portion of the ETF’s Bitcoin holdings,” he revealed. He added, “Furthermore, there was no significant selling in the ETF on the day that long-term holder Wales sold (June 5).”

CryptoQuant and other on-chain analysts warned earlier this week that Bitcoin is currently trading at a “short-term cost basis,” or the average price at which traders have recently bought. When this support line is lost, traders often panic and sell. This leads to a price reduction of more than 8%.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.