Bitcoin Whales Have Been Distributing, But Sharks Have Increased Their Supply Dominance Recently

On-chain data shows the Bitcoin whales have been distributing for a while, but this investor cohort has been scooping up their coins.

On-chain data shows that Bitcoin whales have been distributing their coins for a while now, but another investor cohort has been scooping up their BTC instead.

Bitcoin Sharks Have Increased Their Supply Dominance Recently

In a recent post on X, Blockware analyst James Van Straten discusses how the Supply Dominance of various Bitcoin cohorts has changed recently.

Here, “Supply Dominance” refers to an on-chain metric from Glassnode that measures the percentage of the total BTC supply in circulation that a given investor group holds.

The analytics firm classifies holders into these cohorts based on the balance that they carry in their wallets. In total, there are five such groups: shrimps (holding less than 1 BTC), crabs (1 to 10 BTC), fish (10 to 100 BTC), sharks (100 to 1,000 BTC), and whales (more than 1,000 BTC).

Apart from these, there are also two special groups: miners and exchanges. In the market, miners and exchanges serve a different function than typical self-custodial wallets, which is why they are separated into their own categories.

Now, here is the chart shared by the analyst that shows the trend in the Supply Dominance of these seven wallet cohorts throughout the history of the cryptocurrency.

According to the above graph, historically, the Bitcoin whales have held the largest share of the cryptocurrency’s supply, though their Supply Dominance has been decreasing over the years.

For the cohort, the metric has seen a particularly sharp decline in recent times, suggesting that these humongous entities have been busy harvesting profits during the latest bull run. However, despite the continuous distribution, this group still controls the largest portion of the BTC supply.

The crabs, fish, and miners have seen their supply trend more or less sideways recently, indicating that they haven’t been accumulating or distributing. The shrimps, being the smallest entities on the network, have been buying throughout, suggesting that new retail interest has been entering the market.

However, these holders are very small, and their buying may not be that relevant in the grand scheme of things. In the broader picture, the investors that do stand out are the sharks, and they have been showing some interesting aggressive buying in recent months.

Due to their holdings being notably smaller, the sharks aren’t as influential as the whales, but they are still considered a key part of the Bitcoin ecosystem. Hence, this accumulation from the group can be a bullish sign for BTC.

After the recent buying spree, the sharks have pushed their Supply Dominance to over the 20% mark, opening up a significant gap over all cohorts except for the whales.

BTC Price

Bitcoin has been in consolidation recently, with its price still hovering around the $97,200 level.