Bitcoin Whales Dump Holdings – Are ETFs the New Safe Haven?
Crypto's biggest players are making moves—and it's shaking the market. Bitcoin whales have started exiting their positions en masse, shifting capital into shiny new ETF products. Here's why it matters.
The Great Migration: From BTC to ETFs
Institutional-grade investors aren't just dipping toes—they're diving headfirst into regulated crypto exposure. The move signals a seismic shift in how big money approaches digital assets. No more messy private keys, just clean prospectuses and quarterly reports.
Market tremors ahead?
When whales move, waves follow. The exodus could trigger short-term volatility, but long-term? It might just legitimize crypto for the suit-and-tie crowd. After all, nothing says 'serious asset class' like a 2% management fee wrapped in financial jargon.
BTC whales trigger a major sell-off wave
According to Hiesboeck, long-term bitcoin holders have come to realize that blockchain, which is being utilized in every business, is the true revolution, rather than BTC itself. As a result, numerous other initiatives offer higher returns than BTC, which currently has a broad range of use cases.
Hiesboeck stated that BTC’s compound annual growth rate (CAGR) has been declining, indicating that it is shifting from being a high-growth asset to being used “as a hedge against traditional financial systems failures and fiat.”
Over the past four years, BTC’s CAGR has been slowly dropping. As of November 10, BiTBO estimates that CAGR is approximately 13%.
Dr. Martin Hiesboeck stated that Bitcoin’s maturity is accelerated by the launch of U.S. Bitcoin spot ETFs, which attract huge institutional capital, providing less volatility than retail-driven trading.
For instance, over the course of one month, SoSoValue data reveal that U.S. Bitcoin spot ETFs saw a net inflow of $1.2 billion. The ETFs have a total net asset value of $138.08 billion, with an ETF net asset ratio of 6.67% (market capitalization in relation to the entire BTC market cap). The total historical net inflow is $59.97 billion.
According to Lookonchain, Bitcoin whale Owen Gunden transferred 3,600.55 BTC (about $372 million) on November 8.
Out of this, 500 BTC, or roughly $51.68 million, has already been placed into Kraken. The remaining 3,100.55 BTC, or roughly $320 million, is anticipated to be sent over the next few days.
On September 17, Lookonchain revealed that a long-dormant Bitcoin whale transferred over $116 million worth of the cryptocurrency after a 12-year hiatus, just before the U.S. Federal Reserve’s highly anticipated interest rate decision.
The whale had originally purchased the coins for roughly $847 each. According to Lookonchain, the wallet had held $847,000 worth of BTC for more than ten years before transferring it to new wallets on September 17.
Another Bitcoin whale from the Satoshi era reappeared after 14 years of dormancy, possibly hoping to sell more than $4 billion worth of BTC.
According to data from blockchain intelligence platform Nansen, the Satoshi-era Bitcoin whale transferred 40,010 BTC, worth more than $4.6 billion, on July 14 this year. Of this amount, 28,600 BTC were later transferred to Galaxy Digital.
On July 15, the remaining 10,200 BTC, valued at $1.2 billion, was transferred to Galaxy Digital, increasing the total amount moved over the previous two days to $4.6 billion.
BTC enters new distribution phase amid volatility
Earlier last month, macro researcher Jordi Visser proposed that Bitcoin is in its initial product offering phase, with new traders acquiring the tokens and original holders rotating out, expanding distribution.
Jordi Visser claims that despite Bitcoin’s sideways movement, there is still confidence in the Core value, as evidenced by ETF approvals and the BTC network hashrate reaching all-time highs.
In a post on Substack and an episode of businessman Anthony Pompliano’s podcast on Saturday, Visser stated that long-dormant coins are moving, “not all at once.” Not in a panic. However, new investors are gradually entering the market and “accumulating on dips.”
Bitcoin (BTC) is currently trading at $106,483.50, up $1,719.60 (1.64%) for the day. The cryptocurrency has shown increasing volatility over the last seven days, ranging from $106,786 to $115,957.
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