Who Controls the Bitcoin Market? All You Need to Know About Whales

Do you remember when the crypto bull market ended? Many say it happened on October 10, the day of the biggest liquidation event in history. While billions in retail positions were wiped out, one player seemed to know exactly what was coming. A single whale walked away with about $200 million in profit. And it wasn't the only one moving around. The same time. Large Bitcoin holdings, some untouched for years, suddenly began to shift. That synchronized activity raised an uncomfor. If whales can anticipate or even influence moves like this, how much power do they actually have over Bitcoin? How are these whales shaping the market's boom and bust cycles? And more importantly, what can we learn from the patterns whales leave behind? In this video, we'll explore all these questions.

If you believe whales are manipulating the market, the signal is probably the opposite of what you think it is.

They tend to buy when Bitcoin is, you know, in a bear market, it's consolidating and starts to rise.

If they think that the market is moving higher, they will increase their balances faster.

But before we get started, don't forget to like the video and subscribe to our channel. I'm Giovanni. Let's get into it. First of all, what exactly is a Bitcoin whale? According to most definitions, a whale is any entity that controls more than 1000 BTC, whether in a single wallet or across several. But that definition only scratches the surface. Whales don't just own more Bitcoin than the average investor. They use advanced analytics platforms, dedicated research teams, and algorithmic trading systems worth millions of dollars. Meanwhile, retail investors and traders like you and me rely on publicly available information, basic charts and social media sentiment. But the biggest difference is psychology. Whales don't trade based on emotions. They understand that panic, greed and FOMO drive most retail decisions. And they know exactly how exploit that. That's why they are often referred to as smart money. So for the purpose of this video, we'll focus mainly on two types of whales. First, early whales. These are the Bitcoin OGs, the first adopters who accumulated thousands of coins when prices were still in the double or triple digits. For example, the whale who profited from the October 10th crash, institutional whales. These include ETFs, corporations and public companies that hold Bitcoin as a long term investment or treasury reserve. These are relatively new ENT that emerged after the approval of the Bitcoin ETF in early 2024 and expanded further with the proliferation of DATs in late 2024. Each type of whales behaves differently, but we'll come back to that in a few minutes. Now the most important how can you use information about whales to your advantage? Unlike traditional markets, every significant movement of bitcoin is recorded on the blockchain for anyone to see. Whale activity can be tracked in real time through on chain tools that like Whale Alert and Glassnode. Many of these resources are behind paywalls, but others, including social media, whale alerts are freely accessible. That's how many of you probably found out about the whale movements on October 10th. But here's the thing. Many retail traders fall into the trap of watching individual whale transfers and assuming every large transaction is a buy or sell signal. In reality, that's almost always the wrong interpretation. Those viral whale alerts you see on social media are in fact misleading. The majority of large bitcoin transfers aren't whales making strategic trades. Many are routine internal movements between wallets owned by exchanges. A recent report from Chain Catcher confirms whale deposits to exchanges have very low correlation with price drops and are not reliable trading signals. In other words, most whale alerts aren't alpha, they are just noise.

How many times over the years we've shared a story about a whale doing something and assumed it was going to impact the market? And it literally never does. Like they don't telegraph those things in advance. Even if you believe whales are manipulating the market, the signal is probably the opposite of what you think it is.

Think about it. Whales know retail traders react emotionally to dramatic wallet movements and they act accordingly. Many sell through OTC desks to avoid impacting the market. Others tend to sell during moments of strong buying pressure, timing their exits so the impact on price is minimal. Does that mean there's no point in tracking whale activity at all? Not exactly. Don't focus on the splash from one whale. Focus on the overall direction the whales are moving. That's the kind of insight that helps us understand the the true state of the bitcoin market and even spot early signs of upcoming bull or bear cycles.

The whales, the big investor, the mega whales, they tend to buy when bitcoin is, you know, in a bear market. It's consolidating and starts to rise. And then of course, if the rally continues, then those investors start to liquidate.

If they think that the market is moving higher, they will increase their balances faster, right? And then they get to a top and then they slow down their purchases.

So how can you apply this information on the current situation in the market on chain Data shows that many early Bitcoin OGs, the original long term holders, have Been selling heavily, especially in the second half of this year. These longtime whales started taking profits once bitcoin broke above the $100,000 level. And the selling pressure really peaked this autumn. In total, more than 470,000 BTC that had been held for over five years has changed hands in 2025.

Once we got over 100,000, certainly near 125,000, a lot of people who held a lot of bitcoin finally said, enough is enough. A lot of those whales have either matured, grown older, have gotten so rich that they don't know what to do with it and are finally willing to sell, or they've just seen Wall street and governments come in and take a interest in the asset that they were using as a hedge against Wall street and governments and have said, you know what? I'm going to go ahead and sell some of this.

Why does this matter? This is classic profit taking behavior, the kind you typically see in the final stages of a bull market. But here is the interesting part. Despite all this heavy selling from early OG whales, the market didn't crash for most of 2025. Bitcoin basically moved sideways. So why didn't things fall apart? Because the second class of whales, the institutions, stepped in and absorbed the supply. We are talking about Bitcoin ETFs and DATs, which have been buying on a massive scale since late 2024, over the.

Last sort of like 18 months. Really, who was really the buyer of, you know, bitcoin, really? And it's not the retail investor, it's really these wallets. Between 100 wallets to 1000 BTC. Those were the ones that were buying, and those were the ones only really started to buy, you know, shortly before the Trump election.

For example, BlackRock's IBIT ETF alone now holds roughly 800,000 BTC, making it one of the largest holders on the planet. And when you combine all ETFs and public companies, together, they control about 11% of all Bitcoin in existence. But that's not the whole story. In the past few weeks, we've seen another major shift. The buying pressure from institutional whales has started to slow down. In fact, BlackRock CTF even recorded net outflows in November. This happened largely after the late October Fed meeting where the expected easing of economic policy in the US was delayed.

After the FOMC meeting. The Bitcoin ETF holders are selling. They sold US$4 billion worth of BTC already.

You know, ETFs are not buying as much. Even, you know, last Month they were net sellers. And treasury companies have also basically, basically stopped buying.

There is a huge sell flow from the whales, which is actually the wallets of 100 BTC to a thousand BTC. And these are not the OG investors. The OG investors, they hold much, you know, many more bitcoins per wallet.

This shift is one of the factors that could explain the market's recent downward trend. What many now see as the early stage of a new bear market. And that brings us to the key question for the next cycle. How will whales shape the market moving forward? Right now there are two main theories. The first group of analysts believe that institutional whales will continue accumulating Bitcoin no matter what. They call them passive buyers. The idea is simple. They buy, they hold and they never sell. That should make the next bear market less severe.

We're in that phase where what used to be the floor buyer are now the top seller and are selling to a new floor buyer who's not going anywhere. Because once these institutions have finally gone through the risk management process and done their due diligence, they're not going to buy it and sell it tomorrow. These are long term buyers, the ETF type buyers, the institutions adding it to the balance sheet.

However, that narrative doesn't look quite as solid anymore, not after the ETF outflows we've seen in recent weeks. So here is the other theory. The original long term whales survived more than a decade of extreme volatility. Many of them were early cipher punks whose ideological conviction gave them true diamond hands. Institutional whales, on the other hand, don't have that same ideological attachment to Bitcoin. And unlike the early holders, they've never been tested by a deep, prolonged crypto winter.

Suddenly you have, you know, moved those bitcoins from really the diamond hand holders that have been holding Bitcoin for the last 10, 15 years into hands that are, you know, yes, institutional, deep pockets, investor, but they're certainly not going to sit there if the price goes down and hold it forever. You sit in a fund and you have bought Bitcoin or Ethereum and your risk manager says you are down. You know, you cannot get bigger risk limits for next year. And I think that's why we're seeing this unwinding, because we're coming into the year end where people probably have to clean up their trading books a little bit.

So here is the final takeaway. As bitcoin supply has shifted from OG whales to institutional whales, Bitcoin became more intertwined with the traditional financial system and more sensitive to macro forces like Federal Reserve policy and liquidity cycles. This new structure could make Bitcoin a more predictable asset. Although predictable doesn't mean the price always goes up. That's it for today's video. What did you think of our analysis? Let us know in the comments below. I'm Giovanni. See you next time.