Bitcoin Sharks and Whales Accumulated $2B Worth of BTC Since BlackRock’s ETF Filing

Despite bitcoin’s relatively flat trading at between $30,000 and $31,000 lately, BTC sharks and whales have purchased approximately $2.14 billion (calculated at current prices) worth of the leading digital asset since June 17. 

According to Santiment’s data, those investors own around 13.02 million BTC, equaling over $391 billion.

The Recent Accumulation Spree

The analytics platform focused on cryptocurrencies – Santiment – estimated that bitcoin sharks and whales (those who have between 10 BTC and 10,000 BTC) have bought 71,000 BTC in the past three weeks.

The development comes despite BTC’s rather underwhelming price performance lately, as the asset has been trading sideways for a few weeks.

The confidence among the investors could be fueled by some recent developments that have infused general optimism in the industry. For one, the world’s largest asset manager – BlackRock – filed to launch a spot BTC ETF in the United States. The company has an outstanding record, seeing 575 out of its 576 products approved by the SEC over the years. 

Anthony Scaramucci – a former White House official and founder of SkyBridge Capital – previously argued that bitcoin could become a subject of mass adoption should leading institutions like BlackRock release similar products.

Several other finance giants mimicked the move in the following days, with Invesco, WisdomTree, and Fidelity Digital Assets being on the list. 

Another factor displaying the overall bullish investor mode is the popular BTC Fear and Greed Index. The metric has ranged between 54 and 64 in the last 20 days (a “Greed” territory). 

Long-Term Holders on the Same Path

Another analysis showed that bitcoin investors who have been part of the ecosystem for at least the past 155 days currently own almost 14.5 million BTC. Those have purchased a considerable amount between April and early July 2023.

The largest digital asset by market capitalization performed quite well during that period, closing its second consecutive quarter in the green for the first time since the bull market in 2021. 

It is worth mentioning that LTHs have been active not only during crypto’s good days. Those investors showed an increasing appetite at the end of 2022 when the once-prominent exchange FTX collapsed and triggered colossal losses for its clients. Besides that, the event undermined the legitimacy of the industry to an extent and lowered the trust in centralized platforms.

Investment firms, hedge funds, private funds, and others (known as institutional investors) have also shifted their focus toward bitcoin.

“Analyzing the holdings of these funds provides valuable insights into the market dynamics and investor sentiment…Monitoring fund holdings not only provides an understanding of the market sentiment but also highlights the confidence institutional investors have in bitcoin as a long-term asset,” data analysis platform CryptoQuant stated.