Unidentified Whales Buy 240K-420K Bitcoins This Year: CryptoQuant CEO

Ki Young Ju, crypto analyst, CEO and founder of the CryptoQuant on-chain data CryptoQuant, has taken to the X social media platform (widely known as Twitter in the past) to comment on recent whale transactions spotted recently, as whales have been buying tons of Bitcoin.

At the time of this writing, Bitcoin is changing hands at $95,772 after dropping by 3.6% over the last 24 hours. It was a sharp reversal after the Christmas rally witnessed on Dec. 25, when Bitcoin surged to $99,000 briefly.

Bitcoin will hardly drop lower than 30%, Ju believes

Ju tweeted that the attitude of the crypto community toward whales accumulating large amounts of Bitcoin has become cooler now that these regular purchases have stopped having any significance; it “has become common that it’s now daily chatter,” unlike 2-3 years ago, when they would send shockwaves through the market and make breaking news.

He believes that this change in sentiment reflects the fact that retail investors are keeping away from Bitcoin and have left market domination to whales.

The narrative of whale accumulation on #Bitcoin has become so common that it’s now daily chatter.

Just 2–3 years ago, news of whales accumulating would send shockwaves through the market. Today, it’s no longer breaking news—it’s just expected, routine information.

This shift… pic.twitter.com/7zftwtZh8S

— Ki Young Ju (@ki_young_ju) December 26, 2024

Right now, Ju says, the community is clearly witnessing a bull market as on-chain data demonstrates whales buying Bitcoin actively, with $7 billion in capital entering the market on a weekly basis.

The CryptoQuant CEO also shared an expectation that at the current bull market, even if Bitcoin should reverse and enter a correction, the price will hardly drop more than 30%, and such a drop would certainly be short-lived. After this potential correction, Bitcoin is likely to recover by more than 30%, per Ju.

Mysterious whales buy 240K-420K BTC: Ki Young Ju

Ki Young Ju also revealed the major institutional Bitcoin buyers who have been actively accumulating BTC throughout this year. Those are spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy, and custodial wallets. Cumulatively, these buyers have grabbed approximately 1.55 million BTC this year.

Many institutions have been purchasing BTC from whales via privacy transactions, Ju revealed: “Whales frequently use privacy transactions to transfer their funds to new institutional investors.”

However, Ju admitted that there were certain transactions that his on-chain data company was unable to identify, therefore, those buyers remain undisclosed. They have bought between 240,000 BTC and 420,000 BTC: “We still don’t know who has accumulated approx. 240K–420K BTC. Who are these whales?”

Whales are accumulating #Bitcoin through privacy transactions.

Over the past two years, the annual average number of CoinJoin transactions has tripled. While some attribute this surge to hackers laundering stolen funds, Chainalysis reports total hacking losses of $2.2 billion… pic.twitter.com/8Uex48UtWf

— Ki Young Ju (@ki_young_ju) December 26, 2024

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