Bitcoin whale activity could experience its highest spike in weekly transactions this year with Bitcoin falling under $90,000, according to the market intelligence platform Santiment.
The increase in whale activity has grown in step with the slump in crypto prices, Santiment said in an X post on Wednesday.
Bitcoin (BTC) dropped below $90,000 this week — the first time in seven months. Santiment said it has already tracked over 102,000 whale transactions exceeding $100,000, and a further 29,000 transactions over $1 million.
“This week has a good chance of ending up as the most active whale week of 2025, with the context of these whale moves gradually turning from dumping to accumulating again.”
Some analysts have speculated whale selling is partly to blame for the crypto market pullback.
However, data from the analytics platform Glassnode shows that large holders have been accumulating since late October, with a notable spike in whale wallets holding more than 1,000 Bitcoin starting last Friday.
Whales are buying the dip
Speaking to Cointelegraph, Pav Hundal, the lead analyst at crypto trading platform Swyftx, said he believes news cycles have driven spikes in whale activity over the last year, with a significant amount of twitch trading linked to geopolitical events in the US.
“BTC has rallied in the wake of Nvidia’s bumper results and that suggests to me that both whales and retail are stepping in and buying,” he said, adding that “the buy-to-sell ratio across Swyftx’s own order books was at record highs in early trading, with 10 buys to every sell, compared to the average of 3:1. Investors are buying the dip.”
“The market is irrational at the moment. We’ve seen an unprecedented shake-out of short-term holders over the last few weeks. When you look at the data, I see this as mechanical shakeout. This looks like a much needed washout and reset for the market.”
Bradley Duke, Managing Director and Head of Bitwise Asset Management in Europe, said in an X post on Wednesday that his company has noticed that as fear and panic grip the market, whales have been buying the dip.
“While fear and panic had afflicted many investors, the number of BTC Whales has spiked up of late. Large holders are keeping a level head and buying at discount prices from panic sellers. Stay strong,” he added.
Related: Stay calm: Bitcoin whales are selling, but it’s no ‘sudden exodus’
Patterns suggest a big forced seller: Multicoin exec
Meanwhile, Tushar Jain, co-founder and managing partner of investment firm Multicoin Capital, said in an X post on Wednesday that he can see a pattern in the selling and thinks it could soon come to an end.
“It feels like a big forced seller is in the market. We are seeing systematic selling during specific hours. Probably a consequence of 10/10 liquidations. Hard to imagine this scale of forced selling continues for much longer.”
BitMine chairman Tom Lee and Bitwise Asset Management chief investment officer Matt Hougan predicted on Monday that Bitcoin could hit a bottom as soon as this week.
Magazine: 2026 is the year of pragmatic privacy in crypto: Canton, Zcash and more
