Whales Make a Splash, Can They Move Currents?
Crypto markets are keen to comments about whales — holders of sizeable stake of coins. Often cited as culprits for price movements, we’ve seen then blamed for cornering the market, building bid-ask walls, sell-offs, and all sorts of influence.
Chainalysis runs consistently solid reports and put some data in this discussion. By their blog post “The Economic Impact of Ether Whales on the Market” we read whales indeed make a splash and can cause waves, but not market trends.
Their analysis is from ETH price perspective. Concluding that whales major impact is on short term volatility, not price trend. It also uncovers an interesting bias; whales sending ETH to exchanges impact volatility, while receiving shows no significant impact.
Not surprisingly, but useful corroboration are the facts that ETH follow Bitcoin price moves, and that concentration of Bitcoin and ETH holders are very far from decentralised.
