A wallet that had been silent since Bitcoin traded near $6,500 sprang back to life this week, moving $188 million in its first onchain activity in seven years.
With Bitcoin now trading around $64,000, the whale sent 2,931 BTC from wallet ‘356my’ to address ‘bc1qn’ on Sunday, according to blockchain data platform Arkham.
That puts the holder on a nearly ten-fold gain, according to analytics platform Onchain Lens.
When whales stir
The transfer landed during a stretch where whale movements — defined by Coinglass as transactions of at least $10 million — are making up the bulk of Bitcoin heading to exchanges.
Large deposits like these often come before sales, which can weigh on price.
Fast becoming the year of the whale
Whales have driven most of the Bitcoin flowing into exchanges since the start of the year.
Roughly 99% of BTC deposited to exchanges currently comes from the 10 largest individual transfers, according to CryptoQuant’s exchange whale ratio, which sat at 0.99 at press time.
A high reading means whales account for a disproportionate share of inflows.
CryptoQuant describes this as “historically a bearish signal,” since such deposits are more likely to precede big sell orders than everyday retail activity.
Added selling pressure
The whale moves may compound existing pressure from spot Bitcoin ETF holders.
US-traded spot Bitcoin ETFs drew $197 million in net inflows in the week leading up to Friday.
Still, they logged $4.51 billion in net outflows in June, their worst month on record, according to Farside Investors data.
