After months of selling bitcoin, large holders have bought about 43,000 of the coins over the past 60 days, Bloomberg reported Tuesday (Aug. 18), citing data from CryptoQuant.
Those coins are worth about $2.75 billion at current prices, according to the report.
The so-called bitcoin whales, together with dolphins who have smaller holdings, began buying bitcoin again when the coin began to trade around $60,000, the report said.
Over the previous months, the price of bitcoin had dropped by about 50% from its October high. During that slump, retail traders left the market, crypto funds lost billions and Strategy Inc., one of bitcoin’s biggest buyers, became a seller of the coin, per the report.
While the renewal of buying by bitcoin whales could signal that the market hit bottom and could begin to rise, there are concerns about the loss of retail investors and lower participation, with August spot volumes being the lowest for the month since August 2021, according to the report.
CoinDesk reported Tuesday that bitcoin gained more than 2% over the past 24 hours and reached $64,900, which is at the higher end of the price range of $62,000 to $65,000 that the coin has seen since early June.
It was reported Aug. 10 that bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) were seeing stronger inflows after a recent crypto hack.
The U.S.-listed ETFs, which provide investors with exposure to bitcoin’s price without requiring them to hold the coins themselves, drew more than $850 million during the previous week, the highest level since April, after the revelation of a breach involving Coldcard wallets made by Coinkite that drained about $130 million in bitcoin.
Some analysts said investors could be seeking the shelter of regulated ETFs, according to the report.
It was reported June 24 that bitcoin fell as low as $59,023 that day, which was the lowest price since October 2024.
The report attributed bitcoin’s decline to retail traders losing interest in the asset as they shift their attention to artificial intelligence stocks, Strategy Inc. facing billions of unrealized losses and ETF buyers being underwater if they bought bitcoin when it was far higher.
