Bitcoin and Ethereum whales are preparing for a renewed cryptocurrency market rally, grabbing as much of both cryptoassets’ total supply as they can before prices move up in the near future.
According to crypto analytics firm Santiment, Bitcoin’s largest holder – those with over 1,000 BTC or more, worth about $49.8 million at press time – now hold 42.56% of the flagship cryptocurrency’s total supply, after dropping from 43.29% on February 8. Their large supply helped fueled bitcoin’s move to a new all-time high to $58,000.
Per the firm, if whales control over 43% of bitcoin’s total supply, it will be an “indication whales are looking to fuel another rally.”
Large holders taking over a larger portion of the cryptocurrency’s supply may help reduce selling pressure and even lead to a supply squeeze, as demand from other buyers remains while available supply drops significantly.
Santiment, as Daily Hodl reports, also revealed that Ethereum’s 10 largest addresses that are not controlled by cryptocurrency trading platforms are holdings the “most combined supply of ETH tokens (16.86M) since July 2016.”
Earlier this month, over 1 million ETH ($1.57 billion) was added to these addresses, showing they’re gearing up for a move upward.
In separate tweets, Santiment pointed out that while whales prepare for a BTC and ETH rally, smaller cryptocurrencies have been outperforming these blue-chip cryptos, likely because of demand coming in from retail investors.
Altcoins outperforming both BTC and ETH include Polygon (MATIC), Enjin (ENJ), Theta blockchain’s governance token Theta Fuel (TFUEL), and XinFin (XDC). These are outperforming bitcoin at a time in which the cryptocurrency struggles to remain above the $50,000 mark.
Other metrics point to an upcoming cryptocurrency rally. The amount of bitocin held on cryptocurrency exchanges has been steadily dropping over the last few weeks, to the point that over the last 30 days an estimated 46,900 BTC, worth over $2.3 billion, is believed to have left trading platforms.
The bitcoin balance on cryptocurrency trading platforms is often used by analysts to gain insights into what BTC investors are thinking. A large amount of bitcoin leaving trading platforms shows investors are looking to self-custody their funds, presumably because they plan to hold onto them for some time. This reduces selling pressure on the cryptocurrency.
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