Bitcoin Whale Transfers See Massive Spike: Sign Of Profit-Taking?

On-chain data shows the Bitcoin whale transactions have spiked following the latest rally, a sign that profit-taking may have begun.

According to data from the on-chain analytics firm Santiment, the Bitcoin whales have shown an increase in activity recently. The indicator of relevance here is the “Whale Transaction Count,” which keeps track of the total amount of transfers taking place on the BTC blockchain that are carrying a value of at least $100,000.

When the value of this metric is high, it means the whales are making a large number of moves on the network right now. Such a trend implies these humongous holders have an active interest in trading the coin.

On the other hand, the indicator being low suggests the whales may not currently be paying much attention to the cryptocurrency as they aren’t making too many transactions.

Now, here is a chart that shows the trend in the Bitcoin Whale Transaction Count over the last few months:

As displayed in the above graph, the Bitcoin Whale Transaction Count has seen a notable spike recently, suggesting that the whales have made a large amount of transfers. More particularly, these humongous entities made a total of 11,697 transfers in the span of 24 hours at the peak of this spike.

Generally, it’s hard to say anything about what sort of transfer activity it is exactly that the whales are participating in based off the Whale Transaction Count alone, since both selling and buying transactions look the same from the perspective of the indicator. The accompanying price action, though, can provide some hints.

The latest peak in the metric is the highest that the indicator has gotten since early August. Back then, the spike had coincided with a crash in the asset’s price, implying that a lot of the whales’ moves may have had been for selling.

The current increase in the Whale Transaction Count has come as Bitcoin has been rallying, so it’s possible that the whales may be participating in profit-taking again. Since the spike occurred, BTC has slid down under $67,000, which may add evidence for this.

In the same chart, Santiment has also attached the data for another BTC metric: the Social Dominance. This indicator basically tells us about the share of social media discussions that Bitcoin is occupying as compared to the total for the top 100 assets in the sector.

From the graph, it’s apparent that the Social Dominance has spiked to 25.5% for the cryptocurrency, which is the highest value since late July. Thus, Bitcoin’s mindshare is currently high when compared to that of the altcoins.

This is usually a sign of fear of missing out (FOMO) among traders. Historically, excessive hype has been a poor sign for BTC, with tops often following it.

“Both of these signals are signs that the rally may be on hold due to key stakeholder profit taking and high crowd FOMO,” notes the analytics firm.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at around $66,900, up more than 9% over the last week.