On-chain statistics suggest that the number of #bitcoin sharks has lately increased, while the number of whales on the network has plateaued.
The number of whales on the Bitcoin #blockchain has decreased somewhat in recent months, according to statistics from the on-chain analytics company Santiment.
The essential indicator here is "Supply Distribution," which represents the total amount of addresses on the network that belong to each of the wallet groups.
The addresses are classified into several "wallet groups" based on the total quantity of BTC that they now have in their balances. There are four such cohorts of importance in the context of this discussion: 0-0.01 coins, 0.01-1 coins, 1-100 coins, and 100+ coins.
Clearly, an address belonging to any of these groups would have its balance inside the group's range. If we apply the Supply Distribution to these cohorts, we will learn (among other things) the total number of addresses in the chain that meet the various requirements.
Below is a graph that displays the trend in Bitcoin Supply Distribution for each of these four cohorts from the beginning of the year:
The first of these groupings, the 0-0.01 coin range, represents the market's tiny retail holdings. The following graph shows that the number of these investors hasn't moved significantly in the last seven weeks, since their Supply Distribution curve has been drifting horizontally. This would imply that bitcoin adoption among small investors is now stagnant.
The second relevant category (0.01-1 BTC) has also lately moved flat, indicating that retail investors as a whole have reached a condition of stasis on the network.
In contrast to these cohorts, the indicator's value for the 1-100 coin group, sometimes known as the "sharks," has only risen in recent months. This would signal that these large holders are still interested in purchasing the cryptocurrency, which might be a good indicator for the asset's climb.
Although sharks have considerable market impact owing to the scale of their holdings, they do not have nearly as much power as the market's biggest cohort: the whales.
These massive investors with 100+ #BTC may transfer a big volume of coins on the network, causing substantial waves in the market. As a result, the conduct of these holders may be regarded as the most critical to monitor.
As seen in the graph, the number of whales on the network has decreased in recent months, however the magnitude of the loss has not been significant. Yet, one truth remains: they have not recently accumulated.
What these investors do next may be worth watching, as Santiment warns that if they start purchasing again, the probability of a breakthrough increases significantly.
