Large Bitcoin holders now control their smallest share of the cryptocurrency’s supply since late May, when Bitcoin first climbed back above $100,000 after more than three months, according to crypto analytics firm Santiment.
In a post on X on Thursday, Santiment said that “whale and shark wallets” holding between 10 and 10,000 Bitcoin have dropped to a nine-month low, collectively making up about 68.04% of the total Bitcoin supply.
“This includes a sell-off of 81,068 BTC over the past eight days alone,” Santiment noted, as Bitcoin slid from around $90,000 to $65,000 during the same period—a decline of roughly 27%, based on CoinMarketCap data. At the time of publication, Bitcoin was trading at $64,792, recovering from a 24-hour low of just above $60,000.
Crypto market participants closely monitor large Bitcoin holders for signs of accumulation or distribution, as these movements can indicate whether whales believe the asset has topped out or is positioned for further upside.
Caution is not limited to major holders. On Wednesday, CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju wrote on X that “every Bitcoin analyst is now bearish.”
Meanwhile, overall market sentiment has sunk sharply. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index fell to 9 out of 100 on Friday, its lowest reading since mid-2022, when markets were shaken by the collapse of the Terra blockchain.
Despite the sell-off by large holders, retail investors have been actively accumulating. Santiment noted, “This combination of key stakeholders selling and retail buying is what historically creates bear cycles.”
So-called “shrimp wallets,” defined by Santiment as addresses holding less than 0.1 Bitcoin, have climbed to a 20-month high since June 2024, when Bitcoin was trading near $66,000, before dropping to $53,000 just two months later in August.
By December 2024, Bitcoin had rallied to $100,000 for the first time amid a market surge following Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election.
This cohort now represents 0.249% of Bitcoin’s total supply, equivalent to approximately 52,290 BTC.
