Bitcoin has declined over the past several days as bears remained vigilant near $70,000. As a result, the premier cryptocurrency has shed more than 4% over the past week and was trading near $66,000 at the time of writing.
Interestingly, wallets with 10 or more BTCs have collectively reached their highest holding level in two years. Data suggests that the absence of FTX’s influence may have potentially allowed the market to reflect demand more accurately.
Whale Wallets Mirror Pre-FTX Collapse Levels
According to the latest findings by Santiment, this period has seen bitcoin’s price surge by approximately 226%. To put it into perspective, this group of wallets collectively held 16.16 million BTC, which is 84.8% of the supply back on June 16, 2022.
Zooming out to June 16, 2024, wallets with 10+ BTC currently hold 16.16 million BTC, which represents 82% of the total bitcoin supply.
Santiment also highlighted the emergence of speculation that former FTX chief and convicted crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried was actively suppressing crypto prices in the latter half of 2022. Since its collapse in November 2022, a clear correlation has emerged between the increased holdings of this wallet cohort and the overall market value of BTC.
“But since the exchange’s collapse in November 2022, there has been an undeniable semblance of correlation between 10+ BTC wallet holdings and the coin’s overall market value.”
This could essentially mean that when FTX was operational, there may have been forces acting to decouple or distort the typical correlation between large-holder buying/selling behavior and market prices. But in the post-FTX era, that correlation appears to have reasserted itself, with the holdings of major Bitcoin whales more directly impacting and reflecting the broader market valuation.
As such, Santiment’s data suggests FTX’s activities may have been an anomalous factor influencing crypto prices until its failure, after which whale wallet holdings have reverted to being a stronger indicator of market trajectory.
Rigged
The mass bitcoin selling was first revealed by Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of FTX’s sister hedge fund, in the dramatic FTX trial last year. She claimed that the disgraced FTX founder had conspired with her to manipulate and keep the bitcoin price below $20,000 using customer funds.
Ellison provided evidence in the form of a document that read, “Keep selling BTC if it’s over $20k.”
The testimony led many experts to believe that bitcoin’s failure to hit $100,000 during the 2021 bull market was due to this artificial sell pressure created by FTX execs.
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