Bitcoin whales. Who are they?

A few weeks ago, the cryptocurrency community was shocked by huge Bitcoin transaction — someone just transferred $ 1 billion to BTC from one wallet to another in just one operation.

It is logical that such an event was followed by a wave of assumptions in the community — many associated the transfer with the activation of institutional investors in anticipation of the launch of Bakkt, others were sure that it was the next transfer of funds from one of the cryptocurrency exchanges as part of the reorganization of user funds storage systems.

Whatever the reasons, we nevertheless admit that moving so much money with one “whale tail” is pretty cool … And probably a little scary.

It’s no secret that Bitcoin-whales with their capital can affect the rates and general position in the cryptocurrency market. According to a study by the analytical resource Diar, last year more than 55% of the current BTC emission at that time was controlled by less than 1% of wallets.

This means that a very small number of people have a very large influence on what happens with Bitcoin price.

Recently, one of the Reddit users raised a very interesting question, which caused a wave of discussions in the thread. Can the number of bitcoins necessary in order to have the status of a whale change over time.

This issue can be considered from two perspectives:

• the equivalent of BTC in fiat — in this case, 10,000 BTC today will undoubtedly make you a whale, however, a decade ago you could buy only a couple of pizzas with these assets(which was done by the famous Laszlo Heinitz);
• the share of BTC of the total possible issue — in this case, the dollar equivalent will no longer have any decisive value. You will forever remain the owner of 1% of the total possible amount of coins in the world with 210 000 BTC.

Many users on Reddit expressed the opinion that in the future, to become a whale, it would be enough to have 0.28 BTC, because the course will soon reach unprecedented heights. Others disagreed with this position, arguing that to have the status of a large investor would require about the same amount of coins as today.

Why? Because the ability to influence the exchange rate and the market “has nothing to do” with the value in US dollars, however, a percentage of the total supply will remain so forever.

At the same time, according to some users, this may not be the case. They are sure that the ability to influence the market does not depend on how many bitcoins are at the disposal of the whale, but on the “total amount of available liquidity on the markets”.

This means that the more people who own Bitcoin, the lower their liquidity will be, and fewer coins will have a greater impact.