Number of Bitcoin whales surpasses 1,600, hitting highest level since Jan 2021

The number of significant Bitcoin holders is again on the rise, reinforcing the potential for a price rally to new record highs.

According to data from Glassnode and André Dragosch, head of research for Europe at Bitwise, the number of so-called whales—entities holding at least 1,000 BTC—has increased to 1,678 this week, marking the highest count since January 2021.

This growing accumulation by large holders and strong demand for alternative investment vehicles like US-listed spot ETFs indicates rising confidence in Bitcoin’s future price performance.

Whales are defined as clusters of crypto wallet addresses controlled by a single network participant holding a minimum of 1,000 BTC.

Their activity is closely monitored because they can influence market liquidity and prices.

At the same time, retail investor accumulation has slowed as Bitcoin’s price nears $70,000, according to CryptoQuant.

“Retail holdings have only increased by 1,000 BTC in the last 30 days, a historically low rate,” analysts at CryptoQuant were quoted as saying to CoinDesk.

“Since the beginning of 2024, larger investors holding between 1,000 and 10,000 BTC have increased their holdings more rapidly than retail investors.

So far, retail holdings have grown by 30,000 BTC, while larger investors have added 173,000 BTC,” they noted.

Bitcoin was trading just above $67,000 at the time of writing, about 10% below its all-time high of $73,800.

Bitcoin prices briefly surpassed $69,000 earlier this week before pulling back, likely influenced by the rising dollar index and US Treasury yields.

However, some analysts remain optimistic, suggesting that rising yields won’t weigh on risk assets for long.

Options trading on Deribit points to $80,000 and $100,000 as key price levels to watch for the remainder of the year.

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