Bitcoin’s price action has been sluggish this cycle, and prominent analyst Willy Woo attributes this to early Bitcoin whales, or ‘OG whales,’ who are offloading their holdings.
Woo noted in a recent X post that these whales, who accumulated their coins in 2011 at prices below $10, now hold a concentrated share of supply. He explained:
“This differential in cost basis, the supply they hold and their rate of selling has profound impacts on how much new capital that needs to come in to lift price.”
Whale activity triggers sudden price drop
On Sunday, Bitcoin experienced a sharp 2.2% drop in less than 10 minutes, falling from $114,666 to $112,174.
The drop was linked by the community to a large whale rotating over $2 billion worth of bitcoin into ether, causing a rapid cascade of sell orders and a $45 billion market cap decline.
According to Blockchain.com data, the whale sent 24,000 BTC (about $2.7 billion) to the decentralized platform Hyperliquid over nine days, selling 18,142 BTC for 416,598 ETH—much of it later staked.
Whale trading strategy impacts the market
Crypto analyst MLM reported that the whale also longed 135,263 ETH on Hyperliquid, reaching over $2.6 billion in ETH exposure and netting a $185 million profit by frontrunning other market participants.
The strategy contributed to swift price swings as other traders tried to anticipate the whale’s moves.
MLM commented that the whale effectively frontran those who tried to frontrun him.
More bitcoin could hit the market
Sani, founder of TimechainIndex.com, observed that the whale still controls over 152,000 BTC spread across multiple wallet addresses.
These coins, originally sourced from exchange HTX years ago, had been dormant until recent activity began on August 16.
