OKEx exchange recorded over 8,000 “whale” Bitcoin (BTC) trades in June; more than any other exchange. It also had the honor of recording the largest such trade — 513.1 BTC according to data from Kaiko.
Number of Bitcoin whale (≥10 BTC) trades by exchange. Source: Kaiko.
Whales prefer USDT over USD
In Kaiko’s nomenclature, “whale” trades are 10 BTC and above. OKEx also led in terms of average whale trade size, which was just above 33 BTC. More big trades are happening on exchanges that support BTC-USDT pairs than BTC-USD pairs:
“This report also shows that more whale trades are made on exchanges that support BTC-USDT compared with exchanges that support the BTC-USD pair.”
This could be due to the frictionless nature of the crypto-to-crypto trades versus crypto-to-fiat trades.
Average Bitcoin whale trade (≥10 BTC) by exchange. Source: Kaiko.
OKEx is a “buyer’s” exchange
Interestingly, the volume of whale buy orders on OKEx was almost double of the sell orders. It is not clear why there is such a difference in buy and sell orders. One possible explanation is that the sellers tend to be more conservative and break their orders into smaller parcels — below 10 BTC.
Volume of buy & sell whale Bitcoin trades (≥10 BTC) by exchange. Source: Kaiko.
Recently, OKEx CEO Jay Hao told Cointelegraph that in his opinion, the key to success lies in customer service. It seems like the “whales” concur.