Payday – whales sell their Bitcoin to institutions, shortage increases
Whales are currently putting pressure on sales, but soon the shortage could drive the price up again.
Major Bitcoin investors, the so-called „whales“, are currently selling parts of their assets to institutional investors, while the shortage of the crypto-currency is becoming increasingly acute.
As data from several sources show, although more and more Bitcoin (BTC) is being deposited and offered Crypto Bank for sale on crypto exchanges, demand, especially from institutional investors, continues to be significantly greater than the existing supply.
Institutions are not slowing down
According to data from Coin98’s crypto-market researchers, in November alone, Grayscale, the asset management company, bought twice as much Bitcoin as was newly produced by Miner (see graph).
Together with Square and PayPal, the other two major players who are buying up more and more Bitcoin, Grayscale creates an imbalance between supply and demand, the logical consequence of which is an increase in prices.
Grayscale is not letting up in December either, most recently buying up 7,000 BTC in just 24 hours, bringing the investment firm’s assets under management to more than $10.5 billion on 4 December.
At the same time, Bitcoin was able to break its previous record high this week and climb towards the psychologically important 20,000 US dollars, which, however, has come under massive selling pressure.
Subsequently, however, the market-leading crypto currency was able to recover at USD 18,100 and climb back up to USD 19,000, although the USD 20,000 mark remains a major hurdle. The driving force behind this is probably that the „Bitcoin whales“ and long-term investors currently have a good opportunity to write off their profits, as institutions like Grayscale continue to buy.
This thesis is confirmed by the fact that this week the whales increasingly deposited Bitcoin back on crypto exchanges as the price approached the $20,000 mark. So while the resulting selling pressure initially keeps the current climb in check, Bitcoin assets are moving behind the scenes from the whales to institutions such as Grayscale and their clients.
Wealthy investors create shortages
Even the mass media have now become aware of this development.
„The number of addresses buying more than $1 million of Bitcoin and then withdrawing it from crypto exchanges has grown by leaps and bounds,“ CNBC reported accordingly on Thursday.