Bitcoin (BTC) is seeing a new kind of “pinball” above $ 20,000 as the original whales continue to sell their coins to larger institutional buyers.
Data from on-chain analytics service CryptoQuant shows that despite long-term investors rushing to offload BTC for a profit, buyer demand still outstrips them.
Analyst: Bitcoin whales “small” compared to new buyers
As BTC / USD continues to explore new avenues, the “original” whales are starting to look like plankton as institutions are lining up to buy in droves.
According to the CryptoQuant exchange data, the outflows reached annual highs in the hours before $ 20,000 broke for the first time in history. The combined shortage of BTC on exchanges and institutional purchases at over-the-counter (OTC) locations lays the groundwork for a fight over the remaining supply – and price hikes are the only logical solution.
“I repeat … the liquidity crisis is coming,” Danny Scott, CEO of Coin Corner in the UK, summarized on the status quo.
Even the CEO of CryptoQuant Ki Young Ju, who said he shorted Bitcoin to $ 20,800, admitted to being surprised by the whaling activity.
“Will focus on the bigger whales next time,” he tweeted as the market continued to absorb big sales.
“OG whales were little whales.”
Ki went on to highlight what he described as “massive” outflows from Exchange Coinbase as evidence of the institutional OTC activities. Current exchange BTC reserves are at their lowest level since November 2018.
“It seems like massive Coinbase outflows usually go to their new cold wallet for safekeeping / OTC which contained $ 6000-8000 BTC. #Greyscale uses #GenesisTrading to buy Bitcoins, and #GenesisTrading uses Coinbase Custody, “he wrote next to an annotated chart.
The asset manager does not yet see the end of buy-ins in sight
As Cointelegraph reported, the degree of institutional acceptance is rapidly gaining an order of magnitude more important this month.
In addition to Guggenheim donating a $ 400,000 price evaluation, hedge fund One River Asset Management confirmed on Wednesday that it plans to bring its Bitcoin and Ether (ETH) holdings to more than $ 1 billion by 2021.
“There will be a generational allocation to this new asset class,” Bloomberg CEO Eric Peters quoted.
“The flows have only just begun.”
The $ 1 billion target immediately pits One River against the largest crypto institutions, including Grayscale, which itself took over $ 13 billion in total assets under management this week.